Boston 25 Legal Analyst explains next steps as judge moves for mistrial

When it comes to an appeal like this, how thorough does it need to be? Are we just talking a one-page, one-line request to the Supreme Judicial Court? Or does Reddington and his team need to submit a packet of information? And is that something that they would have needed to prepare in advance? So I think this is a two-step process. The first one is Attorney Reddington is filing a motion for them to agree, for the SJC to order the lower court, which is the Superior Court, for a longer stay of the proceedings. Meaning, pause the declaration of the mistrial until, because they're agreeing to review the issue that Attorney Reddington is raising. It seems to be still related to this juror, who he wants an alternate to be replaced based on a prejudice or bias, as opposed to just because they're a holdout. And because of that, he's going to need more time to do a more involved appeal. So he needs to see if the court will even review it first, and they can deny to review it altogether. All right. So then let's play this out. If they deny to review altogether, here in about 39 minutes or so, we're back in court. The expectation is that the judge will declare a mistrial. Yes. If the Supreme Judicial Court justice does issue a stay, does it put a pin in this case until the full court is able to hear Reddington's appeal? That's what I expect would happen. So then that would, what, potentially drag this out until the court ... Would we expect them to hear the case next week, or is that going to basically hit pause for an indefinite amount of time? It's not ideal to put a pause on, especially a first degree murder trial, a triple murder trial, when it's so close to the end. So it's not ideal, and the single justice in the Supreme Judicial Court is less likely than not to agree to the stay and to review. They can say, we're denying review. We may have heard that in shows and movies, et cetera, but essentially they don't have to review it. They can say, we're not even going to deal with this issue. Or they can say, okay, we'll give you an opportunity to be heard on it, schedule an emergency hearing. Attorney Reddington thinks he can get an emergency hearing tomorrow, I'm not sure, on a long weekend. I haven't heard of that. Or it would be next week. It would be a fast resolution, but unlikely today. Okay. So we're not looking at a potential delay of weeks in this trial. It would be a hearing that likely would happen next week and have a resolution relatively quickly. Correct. Assuming that that is the route that that one justice goes, and to your point, you don't think that's the case here. More likely than not, this is going to be a denial if they even respond. Correct. And that's just speaking generally with the single justice. They don't take every case that's brought to them on this. It's not to be used to just try to get another second bite at the apple. I do think Attorney Reddington has a valid basis here to ask for and to do what's called the 211-3 to the single justice. But whether the single justice engages in a review or not, we should know in the next 35, 40 minutes. And the request that he's asking for is twofold. Help walk me through this. I want to make sure that I understand this clearly. Reddington had asked for a juror to be swapped. That was denied. He then asked for a partial verdict, and the judge said he was not inclined to do that. He was more inclined to declare the mistrial outright. Do you think he has a leg to stand on in either of these two cases, either swapping the juror or requesting the partial verdict? And he also asked to send them back again to deliberate. Yes, that as well. So if he's going to do a 211-3 and ask for a stay and file an appeal, why not put all three in there? Because there are three separate bases for potential change in how the trial is going towards a mistrial. Yeah. And, you know, we went through this, something similar with Karen Reed, you know, just earlier. What was that last year at this point? It all blurs together after a while. But one of the issues that has come up in this trial is the possibility of a partial verdict. The fact that and we don't know what's happening behind those closed jury doors, but the fact that maybe they're agreed on murder one, murder two, and the split is on manslaughter or not guilty by reason of insanity. It's very possible. And if that is the case, were the judge to take a partial verdict, to your point, it is possible that assuming that they find her, that they're not agreed or maybe they quit on murder one and murder two, but they're not agreed on manslaughter and not guilty by reason of insanity or not guilty, that the only charges she could be retried on are those lesser charges. Because jeopardy attaches to the ones that they issued a verdict for. And it was an acquittal on each of those charges.