Commonwealth v. Sullivan
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree and armed robbery. Defendant’s convictions were affirmed on direct appeal. Defendant subsequently sought postconviction relief in both state and federal courts, without success. Defendant’s later motion for scientific testing of a jacket purportedly worn by Defendant during the killing was granted. The jacket was retested and screened negative for the presence of the victim’s blood. On the basis of the new test results, Defendant filed a motion for a new trial. The motion judge granted the motion, concluding that the jacket was a key piece of corroborative evidence against Defendant and that the newly available evidence arising from the retesting of the jacket cast real doubt on the justice of Defendant’s conviction. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment granting Defendant’s motion for a new trial, holding that the motion judge did not abuse her discretion in ruling that physical evidence arising from the jacket served as a “real factor” in the jury’s deliberations such that the new test results “cast real doubt on the justice of the defendant’s conviction.”
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