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(NewsNation) — Jurors failed to scope a verdict successful Karen Read’s Massachusetts proceedings connected charges alleging she killed her fellow by hitting him with an SUV, starring the justice to state a mistrial Monday.
The announcement came aft astir 26 hours of deliberation and aggregate attempts to debar a hung jury. The assemblage archetypal told Judge Beverly Cannone connected Friday that they couldn’t scope a unanimous verdict. Friday marked the 4th time of deliberations.
Read’s attorneys said the assemblage already had capable time, but Cannone told jurors to support deliberating.
What happens successful a mistrial?
The justice declared a mistrial aft instructing the assemblage to proceed deliberating, but 3 times, the jurors said they were incapable to scope a unanimous verdict.
A mistrial resulting from a hung assemblage could pb to a caller proceedings if prosecutors chose to bring the lawsuit guardant again. A justice could regularisation against a retrial nether definite circumstances, but often, prosecutors tin proceed, according to the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA).
Meanwhile, Read won't beryllium convicted oregon acquitted of the charges since the assemblage ne'er reached a verdict indicating 1 oregon the other. Any enslaved conditions that were effectual earlier the proceedings could beryllium reinstated.
Is a deadlocked assemblage amended oregon worse for a defendant?
From a tactical standpoint, a hung assemblage tin fare amended for the idiosyncratic connected proceedings than a conviction, according to FIJA. That’s due to the fact that determination are much barriers to appealing a conviction, including mounting ineligible costs. People who entreaty a condemnation besides aren’t presumed guiltless similar they are earlier a trial.
Karen Read listens arsenic justice Beverly Cannone reads a enactment from jurors, which stated they could not scope a unanimous verdict, during Read's proceedings astatine Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 28, 2024, successful Dedham, Mass. Read, 44, was charged with second-degree execution aft being accused of moving into her Boston constabulary serviceman fellow with her SUV successful the mediate of a nor'easter and leaving him for dormant aft a nighttime of dense drinking. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, Pool)
Supporters of Karen Read stitchery adjacent Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 28, 2024, successful Dedham, Mass. Read, 44, is accused of moving into her Boston constabulary serviceman fellow with her SUV successful the mediate of a nor'easter and leaving him for dormant aft a nighttime of dense drinking. A assemblage is deliberating Read's fate, arsenic her proceedings is nearing its end. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Supporters of Karen Read stitchery adjacent Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 28, 2024, successful Dedham, Mass. Read, 44, is accused of moving into her Boston constabulary serviceman fellow with her SUV successful the mediate of a nor'easter and leaving him for dormant aft a nighttime of dense drinking. A assemblage is deliberating Read's fate, arsenic her proceedings is nearing its end. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Karen Read arrives astatine Norfolk Superior Court, Thursday, June 27, 2024, successful Dedham, Mass. Read is connected trial, accused of sidesplitting her fellow Boston constabulary Officer John O'Keefe, successful 2022. The assemblage began deliberations successful the proceedings Tuesday. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Dedham, MA - April 29: Karen Read supporters held signs arsenic they stood a abbreviated region down the roadworthy from Norfolk Superior Court wherever her proceedings was taking place. (Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
What is Karen Read charged with?
Read, 45, from Massachusetts, is accused of sidesplitting her boyfriend, 46-year-old Boston constabulary serviceman John O’Keefe.
Prosecutors allege Read deed O’Keefe with an SUV and took disconnected during a 2022 snowstorm. She’s pleaded not blameworthy to the felony charges, which see second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter portion intoxicated and leaving the country of a collision causing wounded oregon death.
A second-degree execution condemnation could effect successful beingness successful prison.
What did jurors larn astatine trial?
O’Keefe was recovered unresponsive successful a snowbank extracurricular of a chap constabulary officer’s location successful suburban Boston. He was pronounced dormant astatine a section infirmary aft suffering from hypothermia and a caput injury, according to police.
Prosecutors said Read and O’Keefe were unneurotic astatine 2 antithetic bars drinking earlier she dropped him off. That’s erstwhile investigators accidental Read deed O’Keefe with her car portion making a three-point turn. She past drove off, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors showed grounds to suggest that O’Keefe asked her friends whether she could person deed O’Keefe with her vehicle.
They besides said she struck him intentionally, suggesting the narration soured successful the period starring up to O’Keefe’s death.
Read’s attorneys, however, said she was the victim of a constabulary cover-up — an statement prosecutors person denied. Read told ABC News she “never harmed a hairsbreadth connected John O’Keefe’s head.”
