On May 30, 1997, police Sergeant Gregory Gallagher was shot twice with his own gun during a struggle with a Black man in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. As the shooter fled, he fired a shot at a neighborhood resident, Benjamin Pitre, but missed. His baseball cap also fell off.
Still holding Gallagher's gun, the shooter forced his way into the nearby home of Bonnie Lacy. Lacy asked him to put down the gun, and he complied. When he asked for water, she gave it to him in a mug. He took off the sweatshirt he was wearing, drank the water, and fled, leaving behind the gun, the sweatshirt, and the mug.
Several days later, from a lineup of eight photographs, Gallagher, who was white, identified his assailant as 27-year-old Stephan Cowans, who had a record of burglary and petty theft.
Pitre and Lacy, who also were white, were shown the same photographic lineup but made no identification.
On July 12, 1997, Cowans stood in a live lineup viewed by Gallagher and Pitre, who both identified him. Lacy also viewed the lineup, but made no identification.
A thumb print on the water mug from the Lacy home was submitted to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), which included Cowans’s fingerprints, but no prints for possible comparison were identified.
On July 13, 1997, a Suffolk County grand jury indicted Cowans on charges of armed assault with intent to murder, home invasion, armed robbery, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and unlawful possession of a firearm.
In June 1998, Cowans went to trial in Suffolk County Superior Court.
Lacy testified that after she and her daughter heard gun shots, her son opened the side door of the house. She said that a man was standing in the doorway. She testified that the man “just came on in ... [h]e just walked, just like normal walking, with a gun.”
Lacy said the gun’s barrel was pointing up. The man appeared frightened and nervous. Lacy said she asked him what the problem was and he replied, “Those punks are after me,” and identified them as “those white policemen.” Lacy said she asked him to put down the gun and he complied. Then, she said, he knelt on the floor, took off his sweatshirt and used it to wipe the gun, leaving it on top of the sweatshirt on the floor.
Lacy said he asked for some water and she gave him a glass mug of water. He drank the water and placed the mug on her kitchen table. Lacy said she went to the door and asked him if he was ready to go. The man said he did not want to go to jail. Lacy told him that if he had done
anything wrong he should just go and turn himself in. Lacy said she then opened the door and the man left.
Boston police fingerprint analysts Dennis LeBlanc and Rosemary McLaughlin testified that they had identified the thumbprint on the mug as belonging to Cowans. Gallagher and Pitre both testified and identified Cowans as the shooter.
The defense presented testimony from a woman in the neighborhood who said she had seen a black male being chased by a police officer, but that it was not Cowans. The defense also introduced evidence that the Lacy children had not selected anyone from the photographic lineup. Cowans did not testify.
On June 30, 1998, the jury convicted Cowans of all charges. Judge James D. McDaniel Jr. sentenced Cowans to 35 to 50 years in prison. The Appeals Court of Massachusetts affirmed the conviction and sentence on October 12, 2001, but vacated the conviction for home invasion.
In the hope that DNA testing could exonerate him, Cowans sought help from the New England Innocence Project. One of the project's founders, Robert N. Feldman, of the Boston law firm of Birnbaum & Godkin, agreed to represent Cowans. On May 22, 2003, Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Peter Lauriat approved Feldman’s request to have the mug, baseball cap, and sweatshirt submitted for DNA testing.
In January 2004, the tests, which were performed by Orchid Cellmark, established that DNA on all three items came from the one person and that person was not Cowans.
On January 21, 2004, Judge Lauriat granted Cowans a new trial based on the DNA results. Cowans was released on bond.
At first, Suffolk County District Attorney David E. Meier said he would retry Cowans, relying on the police testimony about the thumb print. Two days later, however, Meir told Judge Lauriat, “I can conclusively and unequivocally state, your honor, that that purported [thumb print] match was a mistake.”
At a hearing on February 2, 2004, Meier dismissed the charges.
Subsequently, officers LeBlanc and McLaughlin were placed on administrative leave. After an internal investigation, the department’s Latent Fingerprint Unit was temporarily shut down. Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly launched a grand jury investigation but announced on June 24, 2004, that no charges would be brought against LeBlanc and McLaughlin, who by then had retired.
Cowans filed a federal civil rights suit against the city of Boston. The case was settled for $3.2 million in August 2006. He also received $500,000 in compensation from the state of Massachusetts.
On October 25, 2007, Cowans was found murdered in his home. The crime was never solved.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 04-27-2014
