What comes next after mistrial, reported retrial in Karen Read murder case?

DEDHAM, Mass. — After a monthslong trial that saw over 70 witnesses and over 600 exhibits of evidence, the jury in the Karen Read murder trial reached an impasse.

Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on three occasions.

After a mistrial, there are usually three options:

The prosecution could drop the charges, they could retry the case, or the defendant could enter a plea deal.

As of Monday afternoon, Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey plans to retry the case.

Legal expert Peter Elikann says they would have to retry the case within the next year — so it could happen in just a few months or in 11 months — it’s too early to tell.

We’ll get a better update at the next hearing on July 22.

Moving forward — it’s possible the charges against Karen Read could change.

The prosecution could drop some of the charges for the next trial.

“If we learn that the jury never even thought that the murder charge had any validity, let’s just say for example, then maybe they don’t want to charge murder and they want to go forward on the manslaughter,” said Elikann.

It’s also possible for Karen Read to enter a plea deal — to avoid going through another trial.

But Elikann says it’s unlikely she will do that… especially after she was not found guilty in this trial.

In terms of a venue change for the next trial (since so many people around here know about this case), Elikann says it’s unlikely.

“I don’t think a venue change would work because it’s not like we can move to another county where they haven’t heard of this case,” he said. “When you have a case that’s had such extremely high publicity, it really is hard to move it somewhere else and hope that the people haven’t heard of it.”

The court also says they are not releasing the jurors’ information.

Elikann says that’s not typical — but because there was so much passion around this case – this may be to protect this jury from harassment.

Still, lawyers on both sides will want to find out the breakdown of this jury before retrying this case.

“It will be interesting to see whether there were 10 people on one side or two on the other or whether it’s a mixed thing and that will give us a much better sense of what went on in that jury room and what would happen at a retrial,” said Elikann.

As for the defense team, Elikann says Read will likely keep her lawyers and will probably need to gather up donations to help pay for them for another trial.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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