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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agrees to review Karen Read murder case

DEDHAM, Mass. — The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has agreed to review the Karen Read murder case, a new court filing indicates.

In the filing, Supreme Judicial Court Justice Elizabeth Dewar wrote, “I hereby reserve and report this case, without decision, for determination by the Supreme Judicial Court for the Commonwealth. The parties shall prepare and file in the full court a comprehensive statement of agreed facts necessary to resolve the issues raised by the petition.”

The SJC has set a deadline no later than Sept. 25 for Read’s legal team to file a principal brief on the case and prosecutors have until Oct. 16, according to the filing. The defense will then have until Oct. 25 to respond to the prosecution. Oral arguments are then expected to take place in November.

Last week, Read’s attorney filed an appeal with the state’s highest court seeking to overturn Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone’s most recent ruling, where she denied a request from Read’s team to dismiss two of three criminal charges against her.

Those charges are second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a deadly crash.

Read’s lawyers made that request after several jurors came forward to report that they unanimously agreed to find Read “not guilty” on both charges during her first trial, which ended with a hung jury after the foreman told Judge Cannone the panel was hopelessly deadlocked.

Read’s lawyers have argued that keeping those charges violates Read’s double jeopardy protections and they want the SJC to weigh in on that.

Read is accused of killing John O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend, by striking him with her SUV and leaving him in a snowstorm in Canton in January 2022.

Prosecutors said Read and O’Keefe had been drinking heavily before she dropped him off at a party at the home of Brian Albert, a fellow officer. They said she hit him with her SUV before driving away.

The defense portrayed Read as the victim, saying O’Keefe was actually killed inside Albert’s home and then dragged outside and left for dead.

Earlier this week, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey announced that Special Assistant District Attorney Hank Brennan will lead the Commonwealth’s retrial of Read. He was one of Whitey Bulger’s defense attorneys during his 2013 mob trial.

Judge Cannone tentatively scheduled Read’s retrial for Jan. 27, 2025.

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