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Lawyers for Massachusetts murder suspect Karen Read are asking Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to put her trial on hold until after the nation’s highest court considers her petition to review a lower court’s decision not to toss out two of the three charges she is facing.
Read filed a writ of certiorari this week after an appellate court denied her request to have charges of murder and fleeing the scene dropped from her second trial after the first ended with a hung jury last year.
A retrial is already underway, with 12 jurors selected as of the end of the day Tuesday, a court spokesperson told Fox News Digital. Another four are required as alternates before opening statements are made.
The petition went to Jackson because she is the justice responsible for the U.S. District of Massachusetts, and she can decide on it herself or refer the matter to the entire Supreme Court.
The Waterfall Bar and Grille in Canton, Mass., shown here on March 29, 2025, was where Karen Read, John O’Keefe and friends spent a night out before O’Keefe’s death in January 2022. (Richard Beetham for Fox News Digital)
Experts also see the murder charge in a hit-and-run case as a scare tactic designed to pressure the defense into accepting a plea deal. After going to trial once, Read has shown she’s ready to fight the charges in court, and she has always maintained her innocence.
“I would’ve thought that [special prosecutor Hank] Brennan would’ve gone in at the beginning and said, ‘I’m not going to do the murder charge,'” said Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts defense attorney who is following the case.Â
Read faces life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder at her second trial, which began last week.