Thursday, 4:30 PM
SJC hears arguments in Pring-Wilson stabbing case
By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff, and Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent
The prosecution met a skeptical Supreme Judicial Court this morning when it asked that the manslaughter conviction of former Harvard graduate student Alexander Pring-Wilson be reinstated.
Pring-Wilson, who has been out on $400,000 bail since his conviction was set aside, watched the 40-minute hearing with his parents as the justices rehashed the 2003 fight on a Cambridge street that left 18-year-old Michael Colono dead. Pring-Wilson testified during his 2004 trial that he stabbed Colono after the teenager and his cousin, Samuel Rodriguez, beat him after a brief argument.
This morning Justice Robert Cordy in particular had sharp questions for attorney Marguerite Grant as she argued on behalf of Middlesex County prosecutors, whose conviction was overturned when a lower court judge ruled that the jury should have known about the victim's criminal history. The court did not issue a decision.
Cordy said that Pring-Wilson was being pummeled on the ground by two people and that there was no way that the defendant could know that he was not going to be seriously injured.
"How is a person supposed to know this is all about non-deadly force?" Cordy asked. "What is a person supposed to do in those cases?"
While Grant acknowledged that the victim did have a criminal record, she argued that Pring-Wilson's own description of what happened in 2003 was enough for a conviction.
"The defendant took the stand at trial and confessed to events that amount to nothing less than manslaughter by excessive use of force in self defense," Grant said.
Pring-Wilson did not have the right to use a knife and stab Colono five times in less than seven seconds, Grant said, and the victim's past had nothing to do with that.
In effect, the justices were asking how they could be certain that the jury wouldn't have found Pring-Wilson innocent if they had known the victim had a history of violence.
Defense attorney Charles Rankin argued that the jury should have known about the past of both Colono and his cousin. Colono had been involved in a dispute with a cashier at a restaurant in which he broke a door, had threatened police at a housing project, and had been convicted of trespassing.
His cousin, Rodriguez, had a long history of violence which included crimes with knives, guns, and assaults, Rankin said.
