Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Finds Developments in Eyewitness Research Constitute “Newly Discovered Evidence”

I didn’t write about this case when it was handed down late last August, but the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Commonwealth v. Gaines, 240 N.E.3d 193 (Mass. 2024), is a significant one in the wrongful conviction space. Specifically, it bears upon the leading cause of wrongful convictions: eyewitness misidentifications. So, what did Massachusetts’s highest court rule?

In Gaines, 

On December 10, 1974, Peter Sulfaro (victim) was shot and killed in his shoe repair shop during the course of an armed robbery. His fifteen year old son, Paul Sulfaro (Sulfaro or victim’s son), was the only witness to his murder. In the aftermath, three men were convicted of armed robbery and murder in the first degree: Jerry Funderberg, Robert Anderson, and Raymond Gaines (defendant). Nearly half a century after the defendant’s convictions, which this court affirmed in 1978 on the defendant’s direct appeal, and after repeated efforts by the defendant to procure postconviction relief, a judge in the Superior Court (motion judge) granted the defendant’s fourth motion for a new trial. Before us is the Commonwealth’s appeal from that decision.

No physical evidence tied the defendant to the scene. Instead, the Commonwealth relied on (1) Sulfaro’s eyewitness identification of the defendant; (2) testimony from David Bass and other witnesses placing the defendant in Bass’s apartment near the scene of the crimes shortly after the robbery; and (3) the defendant’s confession to Boston police Detective Peter O’Malley, which was overheard by a Boston police sergeant.

In granting the defendant’s motion for a new trial, the motion judge ruled, inter alia, “that newly discovered evidence — in the form of modern eyewitness identification science — “significantly undercuts all three pieces of evidence” relied on by the prosecution at trial.”

On appeal, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts 

conclude[d] that the motion judge did not err in determining that the developments in eyewitness research constitute newly discovered evidence. As the motion judge noted, the field of eyewitness identification research did not even exist until years after the defendant’s trial. See Cowels, 470 Mass. at 616, 24 N.E.3d 1034 (“we would find [argument that DNA evidence was not newly available] unpersuasive, given that this court did not determine the admissibility of DNA testing of the type performed here” until years after defendants’ trial). See, e.g., Gomes, 470 Mass. at 367, 22 N.E.3d 897 (acknowledging “near consensus” in scientific community about five principles regarding eyewitness identification as recently as 2015). Both parties agree that eyewitness identification research was unavailable to the defendant at the time of trial. There is therefore ample support for the conclusion that the new research on eyewitness identification presented by the defendant qualifies as newly discovered evidence in this case. See Cowels, supra at 616-617, 24 N.E.3d 1034 (whether DNA evidence was newly discovered was supported by fact that DNA science developed after defendants’ trial). The motion judge did not abuse her discretion in reaching the same determination.

As I said, this is a pretty significant ruling. Typically, “newly discovered evidence” consists of things like an alternate suspect confessing, crime scene DNA finally being tested and excluding the defendant as a source, etc. Under this ruling in Gaines, however, changes in science can also constitute “newly discovered evidence.” This would suggest that new evidence undermining forensic bite mark comparisons, “Shaken Baby Syndrome,” etc. can constitute “newly discovered evidence” and grounds for a new trial.

-CM