The Supreme Judicial Court will consider the arguments of the case

Martin G. Weinberg, Reed’s appellate lawyer, said the appeal raises core issues “regarding double jeopardy, a defense that protects defendants, in this case Ms. Reed, from being prosecuted again for the same offenses for which a previous jury was impaneled. released unnecessarily (for a mistrial claim) without her consent.”

“The values ​​at stake are too important,” he said.

Reed, 44, is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, by drunkenly and deliberately hitting him with a Lexus SUV after she abandoned him at an off-duty meeting at the fellow Boston police officer’s home in Canton. Prosecutors said the couple was drinking heavily and their relationship was at risk.

Reed, a financial analyst from Mansfield.claims she is accused of participating in a widespread law enforcement conspiracy. She and her lawyers said she left after dropping O’Keefe off and that he was beaten by people in the house and possibly bitten by a dog before being left to die in the yard.

Hours later, Reed found O’Keefe’s body in the snow.

The case, with its conflicting accounts and allegations of government corruption, has captured national attention. For months, pink-clad supporters showed up in droves to Reed’s court hearings. In July, jurors told Judge Beverly Cannon the case was deadlocked, and she declared a mistrial.

But in the ensuing weeks, several jurors contacted both the prosecution and defense to say they agreed Reed was not guilty of two charges, leaving opinions only on the charge of intoxicated manslaughter.

“These statements from the four jurors are unequivocal,” Weinberg said Wednesday.

He said prosecutors had a “greater obligation” than the defense to offer options for a mistrial before it was declared because they wanted to retry the case.

“I think the judge had alternatives that are not reflected in the record that were carefully considered, including (asking the jury), ‘Are you stumped on all three counts?'” Weinberg said.

Prosecutor Caleb Schillinger told the court that Cannone had “no obligation” to ask jurors about individual charges before declaring a mistrial, calling such inquiries “discretionary.”

Schillinger said it carried the “potential to coerce” the jury into reaching a verdict, as jurors went through a “grueling” trial process and repeatedly said they were deadlocked.

Schillinger also emphasized that Reed’s lawyers insisted on Tui Rodriguez’s statement to jurors in a deadlock after they indicated they were deadlocked in their first two briefs. The defense also did not object to a mistrial when scheduling was discussed immediately after the plea, he said.

“Based on the jury’s notes, the lack of any evidence of agreement on the charges, balanced against the risk of coercion, the defendant’s trial strategy, and the fact that the defendant did not challenge the judge to do more (than declare a mistrial), it is clear that The judge was aware of these considerations and balanced them in a way that was not an abuse of discretion,” Schillinger said.

The hearing ended shortly after 10 a.m.

Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey promised to repeat Reed’s attempt on all three counts. A second trial is scheduled for January, although both sides they propose to postpone it until April.

Reed’s attorneys previously filed a motion with Cannone to dismiss the two charges or, failing that, to have Cannone reinstate the jury and ask them for more information about what happened. Cannone denied the motion, agreeing with prosecutors that because the jury did not submit verdict reports, there was no formal decision.

Read who says she spent more than $5 million filed an appeal in its defense, resulting in a hearing on Wednesday.

There is little case law on this situation, legal experts say.

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Sean Cotter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @cotterreporter. Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected].