Karen Read asks Supreme Court justice for emergency stay of trial with jury selection underway

Lawyers for Massachusetts execution fishy Karen Read are asking Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to enactment her proceedings connected clasp until aft the nation's highest tribunal considers her petition to reappraisal a little court's determination not to flip retired 2 of the 3 charges she is facing.

Read filed a writ of certiorari this week aft an appellate tribunal denied her petition to person charges of execution and fleeing the country dropped from her 2nd proceedings aft the archetypal ended with a hung assemblage past year.

A retrial is already underway, with 12 jurors selected arsenic of the extremity of the time Tuesday, a tribunal spokesperson told Fox News Digital. Another 4 are required arsenic alternates earlier opening statements are made.

The petition went to Jackson due to the fact that she is the justness liable for the U.S. District of Massachusetts, and she tin determine connected it herself oregon notation the substance to the full Supreme Court.

KAREN READ APPEALS DOUBLE JEOPARDY RULING TO US SUPREME COURT

Karen Read (AP Photo/Steven Senne/File)

According to the court's website, it receives astir 7,000 writs of certiorari petitions a twelvemonth and takes up betwixt 100 and 150.

Read is accused of backing her Lexus SUV into her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, a Boston constabulary officer, causing a caput wounded and leaving him to dice connected the crushed successful a blizzard connected Jan. 29, 2022. She has denied the allegations and argued that idiosyncratic other bushed him and near him successful the cold.

Read's lawyers reason they were told by aggregate jurors aft the July 1 mistrial that the assemblage had unanimously recovered her not blameworthy of those 2 charges but could not scope an statement connected the third, manslaughter. But their decisions were ne'er announced successful court.

DEFENSE LAWYERS URGED TO REEXAMINE CONVICTIONS LED BY FIRED KAREN READ DETECTIVE

Officer John O’Keefe (Boston Police Department)

So Read's squad is asking the Supreme Court to regularisation connected whether a "unanimous but unannounced" determination is capable to trigger Fifth Amendment protections and whether Read should person a post-trial proceeding connected the matter. 

If she were to beryllium recovered not blameworthy of execution and past made to basal proceedings again, it amounts to treble jeopardy, which is banned by the Bill of Rights, her lawyers argued.

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After a mistrial, a retrial tin usually proceed, but Read's lawyers reason the unsocial circumstances successful her lawsuit spot her nether treble jeopardy connected the 2 charges jurors agreed connected but did not announce.

Karen Read and John O'Keefe (Karen Read)

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Over days of stalled deliberations, jurors repeatedly sent notes to the tribunal explaining they were deadlocked, and Judge Beverly Cannone instructed them to support trying. Deliberations began connected June 25, 2024. By July 1, with jurors inactive incapable to agree, the justice declared a mistrial.

In their petition, Read's lawyers said the justice did not springiness counsel for either broadside the accidental to talk and dismissed the assemblage without asking them if they were locked connected each charges oregon immoderate charges individually. 

While aggregate jurors came guardant aft the proceedings and said publically that they had agreed unanimously that Read was not blameworthy connected the apical complaint of second-degree murder, ineligible experts person besides said they were amazed the prosecution was continuing to prosecute the charge.

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Karen Read and John O'Keefe (Courtesy of Karen Read)

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"Usually retrials don’t spell well, that’s wherefore a hung assemblage is simply a triumph for defendants," said David Gelman, a Philadelphia-area defence lawyer who has been pursuing the matter. "Since the past case, you person an serviceman progressive who has been terminated for atrocious conduct, grounds volition beryllium suppressed that would payment the prosecutor, and determination is much media attraction that makes Read look better."

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The Waterfall Bar and Grille successful Canton, Mass., shown present connected March 29, 2025, was wherever Karen Read, John O’Keefe and friends spent a nighttime retired earlier O'Keefe's decease successful January 2022. (Richard Beetham for Fox News Digital)

Experts besides spot the execution complaint successful a hit-and-run lawsuit arsenic a scare maneuver designed to unit the defence into accepting a plea deal. After going to proceedings once, Read has shown she's acceptable to combat the charges successful court, and she has ever maintained her innocence.

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"I would've thought that [special authoritative Hank] Brennan would've gone successful astatine the opening and said, 'I'm not going to bash the execution charge,'" said Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts defence lawyer who is pursuing the case. 

Read faces beingness successful situation if convicted of second-degree execution astatine her 2nd trial, which began past week.