DEDHAM – Attorneys for Karen Read are appealing to the state’s highest court to have two charges, including second-degree murder, dropped following a July mistrial.
Defense attorneys for Read, a Mansfield woman accused of killing her Boston police officer boyfriend and Braintree native John O’Keefe, had attempted to make the case that retrying her on all charges is double jeopardy .
But prosecutors argued that the defense had the chance to object to the declaration of a mistrial at the time and did not, and the case does not have a verdict.
Judge Beverly Cannone sided with the prosecution in a decision last month.
Read’s attorneys this week appealed Cannone’s decision to the state Supreme Judicial Court, filing a 37-page petition requesting oral arguments before a single justice.
Cannone declared a mistrial in the case in July. She has scheduled a second trial to begin Jan. 27, 2025.
Defense lawyers sought to have some charges against Karen Read dropped
Following the mistrial, Read’s defense attorneys filed motions seeking to dismiss two charges in the case and said the jury had agreed unanimously that Read was not guilty of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of an accident with injury or death.