Supreme Court denies Karen Read's double jeopardy appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Karen Read’s petition for certiorari, and therefore will not review her case.
Read had asked the Supreme Court to intervene in her case, arguing double jeopardy after the jurors allegedly agreed on acquittal for two charges in her first trial.
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, in January 2022. Prosecutors allege Read hit O'Keefe with her vehicle and left him to die as Boston was hit with a major blizzard. Read has denied the allegations and maintained her innocence.
Testimony in Read’s retrial -- now in its second week -- resumed Monday morning with testimony from Ian Whiffin, a digital forensics examiner from Cellebrite.
The judge declared a mistrial in Read's first trial last year after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on all of the counts.
She was charged with first-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. She pleaded not guilty.
Read's attorneys asked multiple appeals courts to dismiss the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the retrial. They argued in court filings that retrying her on the charges would violate double jeopardy protections because, based on subsequent statements from four jurors, the jury had reached a unanimous decision to acquit Read on the charges.
With the Supreme Court on Monday rejecting to hear her appeal, she's run out of options.
Among the most dramatic testimony in the first week of the retrial was from O'Keefe's mother, Margaret "Peggy" O'Keefe, who was not called to testify in Read's first trial.
Peggy O'Keefe described her son as an "enthusiastic" fan of sports who was "wonderful" with his niece and nephew, for whom he provided primary guardianship following their parents' untimely deaths.
"He was their No. 1," she said, shakily, "They called him JJ."
She sobbed when special prosecutor Hank Brennan showed a photo of her son smiling.
ABC News' Meredith Deliso and Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.
