Appeal denied in 1997 slay case
Court rejects suggestion of another gunman
The state Appeals Court has denied a Dorchester man's bid for a new trial in the slaying of 15-year-old Louis D. Brown, rejecting the argument that new evidence suggests that another gunman fired the bullet that killed the innocent bystander during a shoot-out on a neighborhood street.
In a six-page ruling handed down on Thursday, the appeals court concluded that ballistics evidence cited by Charles F. Bogues "casts no real doubt" on his guilt and ruled that his conviction should stand because he willingly pleaded guilty to Brown's slaying in 1997.
The court's decision brought no comfort to Brown's mother, Tina Chery, an antiviolence crusader who had supported a new trial for Bogues after he said he had been duped into believing he fired the fatal shot and later became convinced that he did not.
"This is not justice to me," Chery said yesterday in a telephone interview. ". . . Just give him a new trial; then he would be judged by his own peers."
Chery said she is haunted by the fact that no one else was prosecuted for her son's death, even though two groups of young men - including Bogues and others whose identities are known by police - were firing at each other on Tonawanda Street on the afternoon of Dec. 20, 1993, when her son was struck in the head by a stray bullet while on his way to a Christmas party for Teens Against Gang Violence.
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, whose predecessor prosecuted Bogues, said that he understands Chery's frustration, but that he has no doubt that the right man was convicted.
"While it's clear that others were firing guns that day, I did not see a shred of evidence to indicate anyone other than Charles Bogues fired the fatal shot," Conley said in a telephone interview.
"He pled guilty to it, and he's responsible for Louis's death," the district attorney said. "If there was any possibility of charging others . . . I would do it. But at this point, I don't see it."
Bogues's mother declined to comment on the ruling yesterday, and his lawyer did not return telephone calls.
Bogues, 38, has spent 11 years in prison for Brown's slaying. He said in an interview with the Globe last year that he initially did not believe he had killed Brown, but his former lawyer and prosecutors convinced him that he must have.
He asserts they told him he was the only one involved in the gunfight brandishing a .45-caliber weapon. The gun was not recovered, but Brown was killed by a .45 caliber bullet.
Bogues pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for Brown's slaying, making him eligible for parole in 15 years.
In exchange, federal prosecutors dismissed cocaine trafficking and weapons charges that were pending against Bogues and carried at least 15 years in prison.
Bogues said he later learned that witnesses had identified someone else as the shooter and that casings from another .45-caliber weapon were recovered on Tonawanda Street.
He filed his appeal last year, after a judge denied his motion for a new trial.
While arguing before the Appeals Court in March, Bogues's lawyer, Elaine Pourinski of Northampton, said her client's former lawyer never reviewed the evidence in the case before advising him to accept the plea bargain.
The Appeals Court found that prosecutors had not withheld evidence and that the ballistics evidence indicated that Bogues killed Brown.
But the court added that even if Bogues did not fire the fatal shot, he is guilty of the slaying as a "co-venturer" because he admitted that he went to Tonawanda Street with a gun that day to help a friend who was expecting trouble from a rival group.
Bogues admitted that when the other men arrived and shot at his friends, wounding two of them, he repeatedly fired back.
"Whether or not others also might have been prosecuted for this crime does not provide a basis for relieving the defendant of his guilty pleas," the Appeals Court wrote. 