The lawyers for two New Haven men exonerated — then unexonerated — of a murder formally petitioned the state Supreme Court to revisit its recent overturning of a decision that sprang them from prison.
Gould and Taylor walked free last year after serving 16 years of 80-year sentences for the murder of a Fair Haven bodega owner in 1993. They were freed by a “habeas” court ruling that they should never have been convicted, thanks to the recanting of a key witness for the prosecution.
Then on July 8, the state Supreme Court overturned the decision on an appeal by prosecutors. That decision could have resulted in Gould and Taylor heading back into jail, pending a re-trial by the habeas court.
But on Friday, Taylor and Gould’s attorneys filed a motion asking the Supreme Court to reconsider and hear re-arguments on the matter. That effectively puts a stay on the proceedings, said Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Michael O’Hare, the prosecutor on the case. He said he can’t file a motion on the custody status of Gould and Taylor until after the high court settles the matter of reconsideration.
Click here to read the motion to reconsider.
O’Hare said he doesn’t yet know if he will seek to have Gould and Taylor taken into custody again. He said he still has to discuss it with the chief state’s attorney.
In the meantime, O’Hare is drafting an objection to the motion to reconsider. He said he plans to file it in the next couple of days.
Joseph Visone, the Massachusetts lawyer representing George Gould, said his motion to reconsider rests in part on the DNA testing of an electrical cord that was used to bind the hands of the bodega owner who was shot dead. In his decision last year to free Gould and Taylor, habeas Judge Stanley Fuger wrote that the DNA evidence “exonerated” the two men, Visone said. That word is quoted on page 8 of the Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Dennis Eveleigh.
“There’s only one definition of exoneration that I know of,” Visone said. The DNA evidence represents “affirmative proof” that Gould and Taylor are innocent, he said.
When the high court made its decision earlier this month, it erred in rejecting the DNA evidence, Visone said. It’s not the Supreme Court’s role to assess facts, but to settle questions of law. The justices can’t consider new evidence, nor can they reject old evidence that’s already been accepted by a lower court, Visone said. “They’re not up there to re-try cases.”
Attorney O’Hare, the prosecutor, agreed with that assessment, and said it supports his argument against reconsideration. Judge Fuger mentioned but did not make any factual findings regarding the DNA evidence taken from the electrical cord, he said. The high court can’t therefore use the DNA evidence as the basis for a ruling.
As lawyers duke it out with court motions, Taylor is battling late-stage cancer that has metastasized throughout his body. The state Supreme Court has called for the expedition of court proceedings.
Visone said he and Taylor’s attorney have sent out private investigators to find missing witnesses — two women whom he said have evidence that could clear Gould and Taylor.
Previous coverage of this case:
• Justices Decree: Guilty Until Proven Innocent
• Chief Justice: Prove You Didn’t Do It
• Exonerated Prisoner Fights For His Life
• Exonerated Prisoners Walk Free
• State Won’t Block Prisoners’ Release
• Judge Orders Prisoners Freed
• Prosecutor Sticks To Guns
• Judge Delays Release In Wrongful Conviction Case
• Outraged Judge Reverses Murder Convictions
Good news that the lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to reconsider! If DNA evidence on the cord around the victim's wrists did not match Gould or Taylor, then who tied it? But I would ask the Court to reconsider also on these grounds: The Miller precedent should not have been applied to this particular case. Miller requires that the petitioners show that "no reasonable juror would have convicted [them] in light of the newly discovered evidence." The Supreme Court said that "although the post- conviction evidence [the petitioner] presents casts a vast shadow of doubt over the reliability of his conviction, nearly all of it serves only to undercut the evidence presented at trial, not affirmatively to prove [his] innocence." I respectfully disagree, your Honors. Had it been known that the only evidence was a fabrication, there would have been no jurors to find them not guilty; there would have been no trial of Gould and Taylor at all. A fair trial, but one that was based on intentionally fabricated evidence, should not render the defendants guilty until proven innocent. That is why Judge Fuger threw out the arrests as well as the convictions. The criminal justice system needs a new precedent for such cases; Gould/Taylor should become that precedent.