A recent homicide trial Massachusetts v. Read has quickly gained attention due to the intricate use of precedents by both sides in an effort to affirm and overturn a jury’s prior verdict. Around 6 a.m. on the morning of January 30th, 2022, John O’Keefe was found dead in the snow on a road in Dedham, Massachusetts. An autopsy the following day would reveal the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia.
The investigation revealed that the night before his death, O’Keefe had been at a bar with friends and his long-term girlfriend Karen Read, who later dropped him off at the location where he was found. Around February 2nd, 2022, Karen Read was arrested and charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide, and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death. Her trial, held from May to July 2024 ended in a mistrial after the jury informed Judge Cannone that they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
Read’s defense moved to dismiss two of the charges, arguing that the jury had unanimously agreed that Read had only deadlocked on the lesser charge of manslaughter. The defense invoked Double Jeopardy, claiming that a retrial on the two charges would violate her constitutional rights. However, Judge Cannone denied that motion, and Read is scheduled to face trial again in January of 2025. The precedents argued by both sides in this trial—their volume, specificity, and intended purpose—highlight a broader issue with how our late-stage 19th century legal system manages precedent.
The Complicated Concept of Precedent
Precedent is defined as “a principle or rule established in a legal case that becomes authoritative to a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar legal issues or facts.” The application of precedent is referred to as Stare Decisis, meaning “to stand by decisions.” Precedent, a common practice in many countries, offers several advantages, including promoting consistency and predictability in legal outcomes and allowing emerging legal systems to evolve as new cases arise. Judges are bound by two forms of precedent: “vertical precedent,” in which lower courts must follow decisions from higher courts, such as the Supreme Court over an appellate court, and “horizontal precedent,” where courts follow precedent set in courts of equal standing.
However, judges may deviate from precedent through the act of “distinguishing,” which involves identifying material differences between cases to justify not applying precedent. This act lies with the judge presiding over the trial alone but may be subject to appeal where higher courts may affirm or overturn the distinction. In Read’s trial, Judge Cannone exercised her discretion to distinguish the case in denying the motion for dismissal, differentiating between the established precedent of Double Jeopardy and the unique circumstances of the case.
The Application of the Double Jeopardy Precedent
The original motion for dismissal arose after the defense learned that five of the twelve jurors claimed that the jury had “unanimously agreed that the defendant was not guilty of Counts 1 and 3,” specifically stating that the murder charge was off the table. The defense argued that a retrial on Counts 1 and 3 would violate the precedent set by Double Jeopardy protections in federal and state constitutions, asserting that while the jury did not formally include the acquittals in its verdict, the unanimous decision was reached. The jury’s failure to report the verdict was based on a mistaken belief that all counts had to be resolved before any verdict could be announced.
Judge Cannone denied the motion, citing the precedent set in Commonwealth v. Brown, which holds that an in-court official verdict is “the only verdict which can be received and regarded, as a complete and valid verdict of a jury.” Courts prefer in-court verdicts to ensure they represent the jury’s final decision, allowing jurors to express any concerns when delivered. The final in-court verdict was officially as follows: “…we have been unable to reach a unanimous verdict.” The defense also cited Blueford v Arkansas, where a juror’s statement “the jury was unanimous against conviction on capital and first degree murder” which happened during open trial, not the final verdict, and counted as an acquittal for Double Jeopardy purposes.
However, Judge Cannone distinguished this precedent, noting that the alleged unanimous decision in Read’s case was never presented in court. The prosecution also referenced Blueford, highlighting that Double Jeopardy did not apply when a deadlock occurred at the conclusion of deliberations, despite an earlier unanimous vote. Ultimately, through the process of distinguishing, Judge Cannone adhered to the precedents binding under Stare Decisis and denied the defense’s motion for dismissal.
Symptoms of a Diseased System
The trial’s back-and-forth debate on precedents and the practice of distinguishing highlights a broader issue with judicial discretion in a late-stage legal system. Judges have wide latitude to distinguish cases based on material facts, with no clear guidelines or limits on how significant those differences must be to justify distinction from prior precedent. This discretion has led to increasingly narrow and specific precedents, which, rather than clarifying the law, create contradictions and undermine what Stare Decisis was implemented to provide: clear and predictable outcomes.
To address these challenges, stricter guidelines on judicial discretion when distinguishing precedents, along with routine reviews of every new established precedent conducted by higher courts, could help restore clarity and consistency. Such measures would allow the legal system to maintain the strong self-evolving practice of precedent set by judiciary discretion while preventing the over-complication that arises in a late-stage legal system.
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