Karen Read’s defense team has filed a motion to amend the verdict slip in her second trial on murder charges as jurors return to the courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts, for their first full day of deliberations in the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe.
One of her attorneys, David Yannetti, told the court Friday after jurors broke for deliberations that he hoped his proposed amendments would make it less confusing after jurors deadlocked in Read’s first trial last year, paving the way for the second, which began on April 22.
Yannetti warned that the existing verdict slip has a “real potential to confuse the jury and cause errors” – focusing on Count 2 – the drunken driving manslaughter charge. The slip indicates that jurors can find her not guilty of the charge and a series of included lesser offenses, or they can find her individually guilty of three less-serious crimes ranging from involuntary manslaughter to drunken driving…