The jury “sharply divided” over Karen Read’s guilt in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend were only hopelessly deadlocked on a charge of manslaughter, and were unanimously poised to acquit her of murder and leaving the scene of a deadly accident before a judge declared a mistrial in the case, her lawyers claimed in a Monday court filing.
Read’s defense team, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, are seeking to get both the latter charges thrown out. Retrying Read on those counts, they argued, would constitute a violation of double jeopardy protections, a constitutional clause that prohibits a person from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.
The lawyers said in their motion to dismiss that Jackson had been contacted last Tuesday, a day after the mistrial was declared, by a juror, who told him that the jury had unanimously agreed Read was not guilty of second-degree murder, nor of fleeing the crime scene.
