BOSTON (AP) - A Massachusetts man who has spent nearly 30 years in prison for a killing he says he didn’t commit has been freed, prosecutors in Boston said Wednesday.
Robert Foxworth was ordered released by a state Supreme Judicial Court justice pending a lower court’s decision on whether he’ll be granted a new trial, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ office.
Rollins argued in legal briefs supporting Foxworth’s release and request for a new trial that “significant constitutional violations occurred” in securing his second-degree murder conviction in the shooting death of Kenneth McLean in Boston in 1991.
Among the violations she cited was a claim that a prosecutor coerced a 15-year-old witness into identifying Foxworth as the shooter during a break in testimony in the 1992 trial. That witness has since recanted their testimony, according to Rollins.
“This DA’s Office, under this DA, will not stand behind a conviction obtained by threats, coercion, or any other unconstitutional means,” she said in a statement. “Justice was not done here, and we have a duty to correct this wrongful conviction.”
Rollins said her office would move to drop the case if Foxworth is granted a new trial.
She said Foxworth has always maintained his innocence, and was even denied parole twice in part because he “would not admit guilt and ‘take responsibility’ for a crime he says he did not commit.”
Rollins’ support of a new trial comes after an investigation by her office’s Integrity Review Bureau, which she launched last December to review prosecutions.
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