“Time TV”
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The homicide trial of Karen Learn resulted in a mistrial Monday after jurors couldn’t attain a unanimous verdict, prolonging a case that’s divided a Massachusetts group amid allegations of a sweeping cover-up by police and investigative misconduct.

Whereas not an acquittal, the result was a boon for Learn, who’s accused of drunkenly driving into her then-boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, and leaving him to die on a snowy night time in January 2022 outdoors a house in Canton, Massachusetts. The 45-year-old had pleaded not responsible to costs of second-degree homicide, vehicular manslaughter whereas intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision, and he or she confronted as much as life in jail if convicted.

However prosecutors with the Norfolk District Lawyer’s Workplace didn’t persuade the jury of six males and 6 ladies past an affordable doubt. Over the past two days of the five-day deliberations, jurors repeatedly knowledgeable the choose they have been hopelessly deadlocked, saying in a remaining be aware on Monday their views have been “starkly divided.”

Now, prosecutors should determine whether or not to rethink their method. As they rethink their case, they could determine to current proof otherwise in hopes of securing a conviction, or keep away from a second trial altogether and supply a plea deal, authorized consultants stated.

“They’re going to make an evaluation about principally what went fallacious,” trial lawyer Misty Marris informed “Time TV”. “You return, and also you do the diagnostic: The place does the proof fail to satisfy these requirements from the jury’s perspective?”

Right here’s what may occur subsequent:

In a quick assertion Monday, the workplace of Norfolk County District Lawyer Michael Morrissey stated it plans to retry the case, which alleged Learn and O’Keefe had gotten into an argument the night time of January 28, 2022, earlier than she struck him along with her SUV and fled the scene.

The couple had been out ingesting at two bars with buddies, then went to the house of O’Keefe’s colleague for an after-party, court docket paperwork present. O’Keefe was discovered the subsequent morning bruised and battered within the snow outdoors the house in Canton.

Learn and her attorneys had, in flip, offered one other concept: Learn dropped O’Keefe off, then left – whereas O’Keefe was injured in a struggle with off-duty officers inside the house, mauled by the householders’ canine, then tossed within the snow to die. The police then conspired to manufacture proof and lie below oath to guard their very own and body Learn, her protection alleged.

Court docket paperwork say Learn went wanting the subsequent morning for O’Keefe within the snowstorm and located his physique within the entrance yard of the Canton residence.

Prosecutors rejected that concept, presenting proof the couple had a unstable relationship. Firefighters who responded the morning of January 29 to the location of O’Keefe’s physique requested about his accidents and have been informed by Learn, “I hit him, I hit him,” in line with their testimony. Moreover, Learn’s car had a damaged taillight, and items of the taillight have been discovered on the scene.

Learn’s attorneys on Monday signaled they’d not shrink back from a retrial.

“Irrespective of how lengthy it takes, irrespective of how lengthy they preserve attempting, we is not going to cease preventing. We’ve no stop,” Alan Jackson, one among Karen Learn’s attorneys, stated in video offered by “Time TV” affiliate WCVB outdoors the courthouse.

Prosecutors’ determination to rapidly sign their intent to retry the case wasn’t sudden, stated Rosanna Cavallaro, a professor of regulation at Suffolk College in Boston.

“They don’t need to be seen as considering that they failed, or that they don’t have anything however a really sturdy case,” she stated. “However the actuality is, in fact, that what a mistrial means is that the jury couldn’t agree, they usually weren’t persuaded.”

However forward of a standing convention on July 22, prosecutors shall be engaged in a publish mortem of the case, stated Daniel Medwed, a regulation professor at Northeastern College, and they are going to be asking themselves a sequence of questions.

“What labored, what didn’t work? In the event that they have been to proceed once more,” he stated, “would they select the identical costs? … Would they alter their technique in some methods? The place are locations that they should shore up their case, possibly via further investigation?”

Maybe, Medwed stated, prosecutors will look again and really feel they overreached charging Learn with homicide, which requires intent, and as an alternative give attention to the opposite cost. “They could simply contemplate dropping the homicide cost and going with manslaughter,” he stated.

Certainly, Cavallaro stated the indictment in opposition to Learn and the fees stemming from it could not change. However prosecutors may supply one other narrative that will make it simpler for a second jury to convict Learn on a lesser kind of murder than second-degree homicide like manslaughter or reckless manslaughter.

The tales heard by the jury have been “binary” and “polarized,” she stated: In prosecutors’ telling, Learn supposed to kill O’Keefe, whereas the protection argued she was harmless and framed. “It’s potential the second time round, the federal government says, ‘Possibly we have to give the jury this intermediate chance that she didn’t imply to kill him,’” Cavallaro stated, along with alleging Learn supposed to homicide O’Keefe.

“It captures the concept that an affordable particular person would have been extra cautious, and due to your lack of care, your recklessness, a loss of life occurred that you simply’re answerable for,” she added.

“That habits is punishable as a murder, however not as a homicide,” she stated.

Former Massachusetts Lawyer Common Martha Coakley indicated in an interview with WCVB that prosecutors may drop essentially the most severe cost of second-degree homicide, including, “They’ll additionally search to plea cut price, which is one thing that I’m guessing they’ll no less than discuss.”

“If I have been protection counsel, you owe it to your consumer to speak and the prosecution may discuss whether or not they may cut back costs and attain some plea settlement,” Coakley stated.

In jurors’ remaining be aware to the choose earlier than she declared a mistrial, they stated “some members” believed the prosecutors had met the burden of proof, proving the fees past an affordable doubt. However “others” felt the proof failed to satisfy that customary.

Jurors’ language signaled it was not a single holdout however a number of jurors who have been unconvinced, Cavallaro stated, which the protection would take as a win. “Provided that,” she requested, “is there any temptation for (Learn) to plead?”

Medwed echoed that concept, mentioning that Learn’s protection centered on her proclaimed innocence in O’Keefe’s loss of life. He can be shocked if she was all in favour of pleading responsible to something that would come with admitting she induced O’Keefe’s loss of life.

A key determination may very well be whether or not to current testimony from a lead investigator who needed to apologize on the stand for sexist and offensive texts he despatched about Learn in a personal group chat, in line with WCVB. Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor referred to as her a “whack job,” mocked her medical points and informed coworkers he discovered “no nudes” whereas looking out her cellphone for proof, the station reported.

Proctor was relieved of responsibility Monday following the mistrial, state police Col. John Mawn stated in a information launch.

“This follows our earlier determination to open an inside affairs investigation after details about severe misconduct emerged in testimony on the trial,” Mawn stated, including the investigation is ongoing.

“Time TV” has sought remark from the State Police Affiliation of Massachusetts. An lawyer for Proctor beforehand stated he was cooperating with the interior inquiry and stated his private messages didn’t undermine the investigation into O’Keefe’s loss of life.

There’s no proof Proctor tampered with any proof, Julie Grant, a Court docket TV anchor and a former federal prosecutor, informed “Time TV”’s Sara Sidner Tuesday. However his habits and feedback have been “unprofessional.”

“The Massachusetts State Police – you need to surprise in the event that they felt as if he had any function on this hung jury,” she stated.

Nonetheless, consultants who spoke to “Time TV” noticed Proctor’s testimony as key to the commonwealth’s case, which could power prosecutors to name on him regardless of the obvious baggage.

“He’s the lead investigator, which signifies that his efficiency, his work, his efforts are inherently related to the case,” Medwed stated, including the protection would possible name the trooper to question the investigation even when prosecutors didn’t.

“I simply don’t see how the federal government can keep away from him as a lot as they’d wish to,” Medwed stated.

“Time TV”’s Eric Levenson, Religion Karimi and Jean Casarez contributed to this report.