Karen Read (AP Photo/Steven Senne/File)
According to the court's website, it receives about 7,000 writs of certiorari petitions a year and takes up between 100 and 150.
Read is accused of backing her Lexus SUV into her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, a Boston police officer, causing a head injury and leaving him to die on the ground in a blizzard on Jan. 29, 2022. She has denied the allegations and argued that someone else beat him and left him in the cold.
Read's lawyers argue they were told by multiple jurors after the July 1 mistrial that the jury had unanimously found her not guilty of those two charges but could not reach an agreement on the third, manslaughter. But their decisions were never announced in court.
Officer John O’Keefe (Boston Police Department)
So Read's team is asking the Supreme Court to rule on whether a "unanimous but unannounced" decision is sufficient to trigger Fifth Amendment protections and whether Read should receive a post-trial hearing on the matter.
If she were to be found not guilty of murder and then made to stand trial again, it amounts to double jeopardy, which is banned by the Bill of Rights, her lawyers argued.
