Ruling Could Overturn Conviction

A full five months after jurors convicted former Harvard graduate student Alexander Pring-Wilson of voluntary manslaughter, a Superior Court judge may overturn the conviction in light of a recent Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decision asserting that evidence of a victim’s violent past is admissible in court.

Middlesex Superior Court Judge Regina Quinlan—the same judge who handed down the six-to-eight year prison sentence that Pring-Wilson is currently serving—will decide in a hearing on April 15 whether to order a new trial.

Pring-Wilson admitted to stabbing local Hispanic teen Michael D. Colono to death after an altercation outside of a pizza parlor on Western Avenue in April 2003, in what his defense called an act of self defense.

In last fall’s trial, Quinlan blocked the defense from introducing evidence regarding what they allege to be the violent past histories of Colono and his cousin, who was also involved in the fight that ultimately killed the 18-year-old. At the time, Mass. law afforded judicial discretion in introducing such evidence, as long as the defendant knew of the victim’s violent past prior to the incident.

Pring-Wilson did not know Colono at the time he fatally stabbed him, and Quinlan decided that evidence concerning Colono’s background was irrelevant to the case.

But this week, in a move initiated solely by Quinlan, without a motion by the defense, she has asked both sides to reconvene and decide whether to breathe new life into the highly publicized case.

The decision to call the hearing followed a March 14 SJC decision, which revealed that a victim’s personal history may be relevant in murder cases where it is unclear who initiated the altercation.

“We are persuaded that evidence of a victim’s prior violent conduct may be probative of whether the victim was the first aggressor where a claim of self-defense has been asserted,” the SJC decision stated. “Trial judges [now] have the discretion to admit in evidence specific incidents of violence that the victim is reasonably alleged to have initiated.”

In the case that prompted the decision, Rhonda Adjutant was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter for killing Stephen Whiting. Quinlan also forbade Adjutant, who pleaded self-defense, from introducing evidence about the victim’s alleged violent past.

When the court was appealed at the SJC, the initial ruling on the evidence was overturned and a new trial was ordered.

“In this appeal, Adjutant argues that evidence of Whiting’s violent reputation and past conduct, even though unknown to her at the time of the killing, should have been admitted at her trial because it was relevant to her claim that Whiting was the ‘first aggressor’ in the altercation that resulted in his death,” the SJC decision said.

The implications of the decision do not apply retroactively, and “shall apply only prospectively.” Thus Quinlan is not forced to retract her ruling excluding evidence about Colono’s past history in the Pring-Wilson case. However, she voluntarily called the upcoming hearing and will consider a new trial if she determines that Colono’s history is relevant to the case.

“Although the court views the evidence as legally sufficient to support the verdict returned by the jury, the integrity of the evidence has been rendered suspect as a result of the decision of the SJC,” Quinlan stated in a court order. The District Attorney’s Office rescheduled the hearing, which was originally on the second anniversary of Colono’s slaying, April 12. Pring-Wilson’s attorneys could not be reached for comment yesterday.

—Staff writer Robin M. Peguero can be reached at peguero@fas.harvard.edu