BOSTON – The latest chapter in the Karen Read saga moves to the state’s highest court, where her lawyers hope Wednesday to convince judges that several charges related to the death of her boyfriend, a police officer, should be dropped. Boston.

Read is accused of ramming John O’Keefe with her pickup truck and leaving him to die in a snowstorm in January 2022. Read’s attorneys argue that she is being framed and that other law enforcement officers are responsible for O’Keefe’s death. . A judge declared a mistrial in June after finding that jurors could not reach an agreement. A new trial on the same charges will begin in January, although both sides asked Monday that it be delayed until April. 1.

The defense is expected to reiterate arguments made in briefs to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that retrying Read on second-degree murder charges and leaving the scene would be unconstitutional double jeopardy.

Defense attorneys said five jurors came forward after her mistrial to say they were deadlocked on only one count of involuntary manslaughter and had agreed she was not guilty of the other charges. But they had not told the judge.

The defense also argues that the jurors’ affidavits “reflect a clear and unequivocal finding that Ms. Read is not guilty” and support their request for an evidentiary hearing on whether the jurors found her not guilty of the two charges.

Read’s defense attorneys cited a ruling in the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, in which a federal appeals court earlier this year ordered the judge overseeing his trial to investigate defense claims of bias. of the jury and determine whether his death sentence should stand.

“By the Commonwealth’s logic, no defendant claims that the jury acquitted her but did not announce that the verdict would be entitled to further investigation, no matter how clear and well-substantiated her claim was,” according to the defense brief.

The defense also argues that the judge abruptly announced the mistrial in court without first asking each juror to confirm his findings on each charge.

“There is no indication that the court has considered alternatives, particularly an investigation into partial verdicts,” according to the defense brief. “And the lawyer was not given a full opportunity to be heard. The court never asked the opinions of the lawyers, nor even mentioned the word mistrial.”

In August, a judge ruled that Read can be retried on those charges. “When a verdict was not announced in open court here, the defendant’s new trial does not violate the principle of double jeopardy,” Judge Beverly Cannone said in her ruling.

In their brief to the court, prosecutors wrote that there is no basis to dismiss the second-degree murder charges and leave the scene of the accident.

They noted in the brief that the jury said three times that it was deadlocked before the mistrial was declared. Prosecutors said “the defendant was provided a significant opportunity to be heard regarding any alleged alternative.”

“The defendant was not acquitted of any charge because the jury did not return, announce, or confirm any open and public verdict of acquittal,” they wrote. “This requirement is not a mere formalism, a ministerial act or an empty technicality. “It is a fundamental safeguard that ensures that no juror’s position is mistaken, misrepresented or coerced by other jurors.”

Prosecutors said Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, and O’Keefe, a member of the Boston police force for 16 years, had been drinking heavily before she left him at a party at the home of Brian Albert, a fellow police officer. Boston official. . They said she hit him with her truck before driving away. An autopsy found that O’Keefe had died of hypothermia and blunt force trauma.

The defense portrayed Read as the victim and said O’Keefe was actually murdered inside Albert’s home and then dragged outside. They argued that investigators focused on Read because she was a “convenient outsider” who saved them from having to consider law enforcement officers suspicious.