Legal professionals for Massachusetts homicide suspect Karen Learn are asking Supreme Court docket Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to place her trial on maintain till after the nation’s highest court docket considers her petition to evaluation a decrease court docket’s choice to not toss out two of the three fees she is dealing with.
Learn filed a writ of certiorari this week after an appellate court docket denied her request to have fees of homicide and fleeing the scene dropped from her second trial after the primary ended with a hung jury final yr.
A retrial is already underway, with 12 jurors chosen as of the tip of the day Tuesday, a court docket spokesperson advised Fox Information Digital.
One other 4 are required as alternates earlier than opening statements are made.
The petition went to Jackson as a result of she is the justice answerable for the U.S. District of Massachusetts, and she will be able to determine on it herself or refer the matter to all the Supreme Court docket.
In accordance with the court docket’s web site, it receives about 7,000 writs of certiorari petitions a yr and takes up between 100 and 150.
Learn is accused of backing her Lexus SUV into her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, inflicting a head damage and leaving him to die on the bottom in a blizzard on Jan. 29, 2022.
She has denied the allegations and argued that another person beat him and left him within the chilly.
Learn’s attorneys argue they had been advised by a number of jurors after the July 1 mistrial that the jury had unanimously discovered her not responsible of these two fees however couldn’t attain an settlement on the third, manslaughter.
However their selections had been by no means introduced in court docket.
So Learn’s staff is asking the Supreme Court docket to rule on whether or not a “unanimous however unannounced” choice is adequate to set off Fifth Modification protections and whether or not Learn ought to obtain a post-trial listening to on the matter.
If she had been to be discovered not responsible of homicide after which made to face trial once more, it quantities to double jeopardy, which is banned by the Invoice of Rights, her attorneys argued.
After a mistrial, a retrial can usually proceed, however Learn’s attorneys argue the distinctive circumstances in her case place her beneath double jeopardy on the two fees jurors agreed on however didn’t announce.
“Often retrials don’t go properly, that’s why a hung jury is a win for defendants,” mentioned David Gelman, a Philadelphia-area protection legal professional who has been following the matter. “Because the final case, you will have an officer concerned who has been terminated for unhealthy conduct, proof will likely be suppressed that might profit the prosecutor, and there may be extra media consideration that makes Learn look higher.”
Specialists additionally see the homicide cost in a hit-and-run case as a scare tactic designed to strain the protection into accepting a plea deal.
After going to trial as soon as, Learn has proven she’s able to struggle the costs in court docket, and she or he has all the time maintained her innocence.
“I might’ve thought that [special prosecutor Hank] Brennan would’ve gone in originally and mentioned, ‘I’m not going to do the homicide cost,’” mentioned Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts protection legal professional who’s following the case.
Learn faces life in jail if convicted of second-degree homicide at her second trial, which started final week.
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