Cambridge, Mass. – A judge today set aside the manslaughter conviction of former Harvard graduate student Alexander Pring-Wilson and ordered a new trial.
Pring-Wilson, of Colorado Springs, was convicted in the stabbing death of 18-year-old Michael Colono in October 2004.
Judge Regina Quinlan agreed to hear a motion for a new trial after the state’s highest court ruled in a separate case in March that juries may now consider a victim’s violent history if the evidence sheds light on whether the defendant was acting in self-defense.
Pring-Wilson’s attorney, Charles Rankin, argued that the verdict was tainted because Pring-Wilson’s defense team was not permitted to introduce evidence about Colono’s allegedly violent past that backed their claim that Colono was the aggressor.
Rankin argued that evidence was now permitted under the Supreme Judicial Court ruling.
Quinlan ruled today that though the evidence against Pring-Wilson was sufficient to warrant the verdict, “the integrity of that verdict is suspect where the jury did not have the benefit of relevant evidence critical to the issue of whether the defendant was the aggressor or whether he was acting in self defense.” Prosecutors at the Middlesex District Attorneys office argued that the high court ruling didn’t apply retroactively. They also said the jury knew about Colono’s reputation as hot-tempered and outspoken, but convicted Pring-Wilson anyway.
