Weinberg also argued that Judge Beverly Cannone abruptly announced the mistrial in court without first asking each juror to confirm her conclusions on each count or giving defense counsel a chance to comment.

But Associate Justice Serge Georges said Read had experienced defense lawyers and must have felt a mistrial was possible when Cannon gave the so-called Tuey-Rodriguez charge to jurors; this was a last-ditch effort to get them to reconsider their position before a mistrial was declared.

George withdrew the claim that the defense did not have the opportunity to be heard and said, “There is no lawyer worth his salt who would not think that they might be subjected to a mistrial on this matter.” Do we take into account that you should have known this would be a mistrial? Does the lawyer have an obligation to say, hey, before we declare a mistrial, let’s talk about alternatives to this?”

In August, a judge ruled that Read could be retried on those charges. In her decision, Judge Beverly Cannone said, “In cases where a verdict is not announced in open court, a retrial of the defendant does not violate the principle of double jeopardy.”

Prosecutors argued there was no basis for dismissing the second-degree murder charges and abandoning the crash scene. They argued in court that defense counsel must perceive that a mistrial was “inevitable or inevitable” and that they had every opportunity to be heard.

Still, Gaziano asked Assistant District Attorney Caleb Schillinger whether Cannone had “the discretion or obligation to ask questions to the jury after the final note about ongoing deliberations or the verdict on a lesser charge.”