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Mass. SJC Ruling On Stanley Williams
Mass. SJC Ruling On Stanley Williams
SJC-12560
c. 278A (chapter 278A) allows those who have been convicted but
2
467 Mass. 496, 501 (2014) (Wade II), S.C., 475 Mass. 54 (2016).
motion stage have been satisfied and allows the motion, the
7 (b) (4). If such a showing is made, the court shall allow the
G. L. c. 278A, § 7 (b).
6
firearm and shot the victim, causing the victim to fall to the
victim's wrist when the victim pulled out a gun, and pushed
the gun with him when he fled, and that he did not return to
2016; both were denied.6 In 2018, the defendant filed his third
would show that the weapon belonged to the victim and that the
c. 278A, § 2, and that the requested analysis did not meet the
appellate review.
reviewed de novo).
Senate Doc. No. 753 and 2011 House Doc. No. 2165. "The
301 (2017).
hearing stage that the defendant must prove the assertions that
moving party to assert that the party did not commit the offense
meet the plain terms of the statute." Wade II, 467 Mass. at
of chapter 278A.
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from which the only way to save him- or herself was by using
innocent of manslaughter.
factual innocence of the crime for which the person has been
defendant need not allege that he did not shoot the victim; he
was not at issue because the fact that the defendant shot the
the offense for which the moving party was convicted in the
the movant seeks forensic testing that will exclude him or her
crime.9 "We do not read into the statute a provision which the
Legislature did not see fit to put there, nor add words that the
Court for the County of Worcester, 446 Mass. 123, 126 (2006).
10We note that during the floor debate in both the House
and the Senate on what would become chapter 278A, although some
legislators who spoke in support of the bill referenced third-
party culprit scenarios, no legislator sought to limit the
postconviction access testing to defendants who claimed that
there was a third-party culprit involved. See State House News
Service (House Sess.), Feb. 8, 2012, at 5 (statement of Rep.
John V. Fernandes); State House News Service (House Sess.), Feb.
8, 2012, at 4-5 (statement of Rep. Eugene L. O'Flaherty); State
House News Service (Senate Sess.), July 28, 2011, at 2-3
(statement of Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem). See Commonwealth v.
Mogelinski, 466 Mass. 627, 633 (2013), quoting Wright v.
Collector & Treas. of Arlington, 422 Mass. 455, 457-458 (1996)
(statutory interpretation must be supported by history of
statute).
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he or she did not commit the crime that occurred: both assert
the bar low at the motion stage. See Lowery v. Klemm, 446 Mass.
[citation omitted]).
504; our reading also aligns with the oft-stated rule that
(1995).
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So ordered.