A Massachusetts choose declared a mistrial Monday in Karen Learn’s homicide trial after a jury deadlocked with no resolution regardless of greater than 26 hours of deliberation.
The mistrial got here after the jurors despatched notes to Cannone telling her they had been hopelessly deadlocked, first Friday and once more Monday morning. After the latter, the choose delivered Tuey-Rodriguez directions — a “final resort” instruction in Massachusetts jury trials to encourage the tip to a stalemate.
Within the jurors’ last word to Cannone on Monday afternoon, they described themselves at an unmovable deadlock with views on the proof “sharply divided.”
“To proceed to deliberate can be futile and solely serve to pressure us to compromise these deeply held beliefs,” the jurors wrote in a word the choose learn aloud to the courtroom.
“I’m not going to do this, of us,” Cannone advised the jury in court docket, dismissing them and declaring a mistrial. Members of O’Keefe’s household seemed stricken after the announcement, whereas Learn approached the gallery with a smile to hug household and supporters who had gathered.
In a press release asserting plans to retry Learn, prosecutors thanked O’Keefe’s household.
“They maintained sight of the true core of this case — to search out justice for John O’Keefe,” the assertion learn.
The trial, which started in April, captivated the nation as followers tried to decipher its dueling narratives. Prosecutors described Learn and O’Keefe as locked in a risky years-long romance that boiled over after an evening of ingesting the place Learn reversed her SUV to fatally strike O’Keefe earlier than fleeing. Protection attorneys recommended Learn, a former fairness analyst and adjunct professor, was framed by officers who had turned on their colleague and had been searching for to cowl up a deadly combat.
Regardless of the seriousness of the fees, the trial has taken on the standard of a whodunnit thriller to true-crime followers and conspiracy theorists who noticed an irresistible mixture of a telegenic feminine homicide suspect, a soured romance and an alleged regulation enforcement conspiracy in a city the place investigators had been intently tied to the themes.
The fervor over Learn’s trial at occasions spilled into the courtroom. Cannone ordered Aidan Kearney, a neighborhood blogger generally known as “Turtleboy,” to go away the courtroom throughout appearances by at the least seven witnesses, arguing his presence may have a “chilling impact” on their testimony, according to CBS Boston. Kearney was charged final 12 months with witness intimidation after sharing movies of himself confronting witnesses and posting private details about an investigator within the case. He has denied the accusations of harassment and stated he was exercising his First Modification rights.
Morrissey, the district lawyer, final 12 months took the uncommon step of issuing a video statement months earlier than the trial to each condemn the conspiracies and plead for them to stop.
“Innuendo will not be proof,” Morrissey stated.
The prosecution and protection agreed on few details past that on the evening of Jan. 28, 2022, O’Keefe and Learn drank on the Waterfall Bar in Canton, Mass., the place they bumped into Boston Police Sgt. Brian Albert and had been invited to a celebration at his residence. After Learn drove O’Keefe in her black Lexus SUV to Albert’s occasion with out going inside, the narratives diverge.
Prosecutors stated the couple had been preventing earlier than Learn dropped off O’Keefe and that she fatally hit him together with her automotive whereas making a three-point flip, then sped off. Prosecutors argued that their idea was supported by automobile knowledge from Learn’s SUV together with a damaged taillight on her automotive and hair on the automobile.
Protection attorneys stated Learn was getting used as a scapegoat, arguing that O’Keefe was overwhelmed up in Albert’s residence earlier than being thrown outdoors onto the garden in a snowstorm, the place he was staged to appear like Learn had hit him. The protection famous that Albert’s home was by no means looked for indicators of a combat involving O’Keefe, and contended that scratches on O’Keefe’s arms indicated he was attacked by Albert’s canine, a 70-pound German shepherd combine named Chloe. Additionally they pointed to conflicts of curiosity amongst investigators within the case and people on the occasion. The prosecution denied there was any police coverup or conspiracy.
O’Keefe, a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Division, was discovered unresponsive outdoors Albert’s residence and later pronounced lifeless at a hospital. An post-mortem discovered he had died of hypothermia and blunt-force trauma.
Central to the prosecution’s case was testimony from a number of first responders who had been referred to as to the scene after Learn discovered O’Keefe’s physique outdoors Albert’s home. They testified to listening to a hysterical-sounding Learn yell, “I hit him. I hit him. Oh my God. I hit him.” Prosecutors, according to the AP, additionally level to offended cellphone messages that Learn allegedly despatched to O’Keefe hours earlier than he died, and a voice message she left O’Keefe moments after she drove away from the home occasion by which they stated she was “seething in rage” and screaming at O’Keefe.
The protection was bolstered by experiences from an FBI probe into O’Keefe’s demise that stated his accidents didn’t look like from a automobile strike, and by damaging testimony from Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, a lead investigator within the case. Proctor confronted withering questions on messages he shared with pals the place he referred to as Learn a “whack job” and hoped she would kill herself, supporting the protection’s argument that hostile regulation enforcement had a battle of curiosity. Proctor additionally admitted he advised colleagues about how he didn’t discover any nude images of Learn whereas looking her cellphone.
Learn didn’t take the stand throughout the trial. She advised reporters outdoors the court docket Tuesday: “There isn’t a case in opposition to me. … After eight weeks, it’s smoke and mirrors, and it’s going by means of my non-public life and making an attempt to contrive a motive that was by no means there.”
The tip of the trial begins a separate course of for O’Keefe’s household, his longtime buddy Tara Kerrigan wrote in an April essay in Boston Journal. “I prayed this can be over quickly so his household can lastly start a course of that the circus round John’s demise has denied them,” Kerrigan wrote. “The possibility to grieve in peace.”
