With jury selection underway for her second murder trial in the death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, attorneys for Karen Read are appealing a lower court’s ruling that she is not facing double jeopardy to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read’s first trial ended with a mistrial last year, but her lawyers have argued that the jury agreed unanimously that she was not guilty of two of the three charges, including the most serious of murder, and that keeping those on the books for her second trial is unconstitutionally placing her on trial twice for the same crime.

This agreement was unannounced at trial, however.

Judge Beverly Cannone looks over the verdict slip the jurors have to fill out when they reach a verdict in Karen Read’s murder trial on Wednesday, June 26, 2024 at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)

The murder charge was “off the table,” according to the filing, and Juror A also said jurors agreed that Read was not guilty of leaving the scene.

Read was arrested on charges of drunken driving, manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident, and later indicted for the additional charge of second-degree murder after she allegedly backed into O’Keefe outside a party and drove away, leaving him to die on the ground in a snowstorm.

If her appeal is successful, she would just face the manslaughter charge.

Karen Read appears with her attorneys, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, during the first day of jury selection at Norfolk Superior Court on Tuesday, April 1, 2025 in Dedham, Massachusetts. (Nancy Lane/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Appellate courts in Massachusetts have already denied her request, finding that because no verdict had been read in court, she was not acquitted of any charges and is not facing double jeopardy. Her legal team turned to the nation’s highest court this week, asking them to review a lower court’s decision and for a post-trial hearing on the matter. 

Read could face life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder at her second trial, which began Tuesday. She has pleaded not guilty and denied involvement in O’Keefe’s death, with her defense presenting her as a scapegoat being framed by the alleged true killers.