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High court orders new trial for man convicted of murdering woman at 2014 J'Ouvert parade

universalhub.com · 4h · first reportShare

If police criminalists had found three gunshot residue particles on Keith Williams after Dawnn Jaffier crumpled to the street, a fatal gunshot wound to her head during the 2014 J'Ouvert parade, that would have been enough for prosecutors to use during Williams's murder trial. But the expert found just two, prosecutors failed to explain to the jury why that was still enough proof of Williams's guilt and so Williams deserves a new trial, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled today. [T]he Commonwealth here was obliged to establish that the detection of one gunshot residue particle in each of two negative test results was reliable evidence to support the inference that the defendant, rather than his companions, fired the weapon. ... Because the Commonwealth failed to provide that foundation, the expert testimony regarding the underlying gunshot residue particles should not have been admitted for that purpose. In fact, the court noted, a prosecution witness, a State Police lab technician, said o