Benjamin La Guer - Challenges To The Conviction

Challenges To The Conviction

Soon after starting his prison term LaGuer began studying in the law library and learned how to access the legal system on his own behalf and for other inmates. In 1991 a challenge LaGuer launched to his conviction two years earlier went all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court which rendered a landmark ruling in LaGuer's favor. At issue was whether an affidavit given by juror William Nowick that other members of the all-white-male panel made racist comments before and during deliberations constituted a violation of LaGuer's right to a fair trial. Even though the state's high court sided with LaGuer as a matter of law, it did not overturn the verdict, instead sending it back to the trial judge, Robert Mulkern, for a finding of fact. After a hearing in which some jurors were called to testify, Judge Mulkern ruled that the jury's deliberations were not tainted by racism. LaGuer exhausted his last appeal of that decision in 1994, more than ten years after his conviction.

The case became well known among activists, academics and journalists who came to believe strongly that LaGuer had suffered a gross miscarriage of justice. Starting in 1986, reporters who looked at the case found troubling questions about whether LaGuer in fact committed the crime. Among those who took an interest in the case and who corresponded with LaGuer were Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, Pulitzer Prize winning author William Styron, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree, and WBUR radio personality Jose Masso, who created the Benjamin LaGuer papers collection at Northeastern University. During that time LaGuer also earned a bachelors degree magna cum laude from Boston University and won a first place International PEN award for an essay on his mother. In 1998 LaGuer was for the first time eligible for parole but was denied because he refused to admit to the crime. At that point he attracted an unlikely ally in Boston University president and 1990 Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts, John Silber who helped arrange for pro bono legal representation. His team, which included members of McDermott, Will & Emery, the law firm William Weld, Silber's opponent in the governor's race, had belonged to, successfully sued the parole board and forced a second hearing at which LaGuer was again denied parole.