Karen Read verdict: How the day played out before acquittal

Yahoo

3 days ago

It took about 22 hours for a jury of seven women and five men to acquit Karen Read on all but a misdemeanor operating under the influence charge in the death of her boyfriend.
But it wasn't all smooth sailing for jurors, who sent four notes to the presiding judge and had what can only be described as a false start with the verdict on Wednesday afternoon. Here's how it all played out on Wednesday:
The jury filed in one after the other just after 9 a.m. Judge Beverly Cannone asked her customary three questions to the panel about whether they followed her instructions, and the jury was sent off to deliberate within minutes.
After an hour-long lunch break, the court clerk began the process of getting Read, her lawyers, her family and the O'Keefe family back into the courtroom. The clerk repeatedly told reporters he did not know why they were being summoned back.
With Read, her lawyers, the prosecution and both families in the courtroom, Cannone revealed that jurors had returned a verdict, then quickly reversed course.
'During the luncheon break, I received word from a court officer that the jury had knocked on the door, indicating that they had a verdict, but before I could even summon everybody into court, shortly thereafter, they knocked again and said they didn't have a verdict,' Cannone explained.
At Cannone's request, a court officer told the jury to put the completed verdict slip — or slips — into an envelope and seal it. The sealed envelope was brought into the courtroom and marked, but never opened.
It was just minutes later that word began to spread of a verdict. The court clerk informed reporters that jurors had reached a verdict and the prosecution, defense and both families would be returning to court.
When jurors returned to the courtroom, the court clerk handed the three verdict slips to Cannone, who reviewed each one before handing them back to the clerk. All 12 deliberating jurors — seven women and five men — stood for the reading of the verdict.
Beginning with second-degree murder, the clerk asked the foreman, a man who wore a T-shirt and a gold chain, if the verdict on the slip was in fact what the jury agreed to. After some confusion, the foreman confirmed that was true.
The clerk went through the remaining two verdict slips, with the foreman confirming 'not guilty' verdicts for all but the lesser included charge of operating under the influence.
With that, the jury was whisked out quickly. After hearing briefly from Read's defense and the prosecution, Cannone sentenced Read to one year of probation — the standard sentence for a first-time operating under the influence conviction.
More than three years after she was arrested, Read drove away from Norfolk Superior Court, constitutionally barred from ever being retried for O'Keefe's death.
She and her legal team piled into a Cadillac Escalade and pulled away to loud cheering from the enormous crowd that assembled outside the Dedham courthouse.
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Read the original article on MassLive.