The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Karen Read’s emergency petition to postpone her retrial for the alleged murder of John O’Keefe. READ, 45—Charged with aggravated assault for a January 2022 incident. Authorities accuse her of fleeing the scene after hitting O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow outside a Canton, Massachusetts, home following a night of drinking.
After a hung jury in her first trial last year, the state has pledged yet again to retry Read. The hung jury indicated that while jurors could not reach a consensus on the manslaughter charge, they unanimously agreed to acquit her of two other charges. Read’s attorneys claim that this unusual impasse should free her from having to go back and face the charges a second time. They pointed out that the jury’s disagreement “was limited to one of the three counts rather than all.”
As of that date—April Fool’s Day—jury selection had already started for Read’s retrial. On that same day, she had filed a petition before the Supreme Court, asking for everything in the retrial proceedings be put on hold. On April 9, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an order denying the request. Her decision largely supported the state’s desire to push ahead with the trial.
The Double Jeopardy Clause forbids reprosecution for the same offense following an acquittal. In this extremely rare case, the jury was unable to reach a final determination of guilt on any charge. Consequently, the state claims its prerogative to re-try Read. The Supreme Court only hears about 80 of the 7,000+ cases filed each year. They usually only accept to hear 100 to 150 of those cases.
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