Karen Read trial 2 is scheduled for Monday

Karen Read watches as the jury enters the courtroom Wednesday to begin its second day of deliberations at the Norfolk County Courthouse in Dedham. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP)

We may not know their names, but Karen Read’s jurors have certainly been talking about them since the July 1 mistrial in the well-trodden murder case was declared. And that could have implications for the upcoming second trial.

“If you are a citizen of Greater Boston, you are aware of the Karen Read case,” former Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley, who served from 2002 to 2018 before opening his own practice with Mintz in Boston, told the Herald on Friday.

Read, 44, is accused of hitting her boyfriend of two years, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, with her car and leaving him on a front lawn in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022, where he froze and died.

According to the defense team, three anonymous jurors came forward to say that the jury could not find just one of the three charges against the Mansfield financial analyst. On July 8, the defense team filed a motion to dismiss the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident based on this information.

The defense is requesting that Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone formally dismiss these charges and that the second trial deal only with Count 2, intoxicated manslaughter, and the two lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter and intoxicated manslaughter.

The motion is likely to come up for discussion — if not immediately argued — at the next hearing in Dedham District Court, scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday. The purpose of the Trial Assignment Conference hearing, which was scheduled for the same day the case was declared a mistrial on the fifth day of jury deliberations after nine weeks of testimony, is to set a new trial date.

The hearing will take place three weeks after the mistrial is settled, a period marked not only by the motion to dismiss but also by a formal order impounding the jury list — first temporarily and then indefinitely after a juror came forward saying they feared “personal injury” if the names were released.

Arguments for dismissal

Since the motion to dismiss was filed, the team has filed additional memos and supporting statements from defense attorney Alan Jackson, indicating that a fourth and, on Friday, a fifth juror have come forward with the same information.

“Given the unequivocal evidence after the trial, it would simply be wrong to require the defendant to be acquitted twice by two different juries for the same crime,” the latest filing said.

Their arguments did not convince prosecutors from the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, who responded strongly to the motion to dismiss, saying that “the defendant’s unfounded but sensational claim after the trial that the ‘jury reached a unanimous decision to acquit’ has no merit or basis in law.”

“The hearsay comments and the jury’s statements about what happened are legally irrelevant as the jury failed to reach a verdict,” the 15-page DA opposition report said.

Conley, a former prosecutor and prosecutor for 16 years, believes that the prosecution’s opponents are right.

“My assessment of the current law suggests that the motion is likely to be denied,” Conley told the Herald on Friday. “My interpretation of the current law is that no verdict has been reached. … No matter what four or five jurors think or say, this is not a final verdict under the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure.”

In any case, retired Essex High Court judge Jack Lu told the Herald on Friday: “Those are substantial arguments which the judge has to consider.

“The lawyers have to be ready to argue this (the motions) on Monday,” he added. “And if I were one of the lawyers, I would be worried about what we were going to deal with and I would be prepared for anything.”

The roasting

A case can only be watched as closely as a popular TV series by as many people if it comes with many unpredictable twists. So for two experts the Herald spoke to, it’s hard to predict how things will end.

“I’m not a very good gambler, but I predict that this will be rescheduled for trial very quickly, and the only thing that would delay it would be appeals to higher courts,” Lu said. “I get the feeling from the judge’s rapid scheduling that this may be rescheduled very quickly.”

He said the standard would be to schedule the second trial in October, December, February or March. But because “what happens in this case is challenging to predict,” he could see a scheduled date as late as May, but probably much sooner — perhaps as early as September.

Both Lu and former Conley predict that whenever the case goes to trial, it will move much faster than the initial marathon of a trial that began with jury selection on April 16 and ended in a mistrial on July 1. Lu said both sides have already had their “test drives.”

“This has been a very long process,” Conley said. “So if I were on either side, I would be asking how do I streamline this, how do I narrow down the evidence a little bit, how do I get more focused and summarize my case.”

I think, Flint, you learn something from the first trial, and this is in the abstract, but both the prosecution and the defense can decide, ‘Oh, you know, we may not need that witness, that witness was not helpful, that witness may have clouded the case.’

“I expect both sides will conduct a forensic investigation and decide how they want to proceed with the second trial,” he continued.

Big problem for prosecutors

Despite predictions for a faster, more streamlined trial — with, as Conley said, “many of the preliminary issues already resolved” — a major problem in the prosecution’s case was revealed during the testimony: Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, chief investigator.

Proctor’s behavior was so bad during the investigation—and the analysis he himself admitted to during his two intense days on the stand—that the MSP placed him under internal investigation before the trial, and the federal government opened an investigation into the investigation. After the investigation, the agency suspended Proctor without pay.

“If the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office decides to proceed,” Conley said, “it will make a difficult task even more difficult.”

Proctor texted friends and other officers saying things he said were unprofessional, including calling Read a “babe” and a “crazy guy,” joking about looking for nude photos on her phone, and eventually telling his sister he hoped Read would “kill himself.”

Prosecutor Adam Lally, Conley said, “did what I think any prosecutor would do, which is present everything, the good, the bad and the ugly, to the jury before the defense did.”