High Court Grants New Trial To Convicts in Puopolo Killing

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court yesterday granted a new trial to the three men convicted of the 1976 killing of Andrew P. Puopolo '77.

Puopolo died Dec. 17, 1976 of stabbing wounds sustained in Boston's Combat Zone 31 days earlier. Puopolo was in the Zone with the Harvard football team celebrating the end of the football season.

If an appellate court grants them bail, the defendants, Leon Easterling, Edward Soares and Richard S. Allen, all convicted of first degree murder on March 24, 1977, could leave Walpole prison soon.

"We hope to be in court next week on the question of bail," Henry F. Owens III, Allen's lawyer, said yesterday.

Justice Paul J. Liacos, who wrote the majority opinion for the seven-man court, stated that the prosecutor's misuse of peremptory challenges to eliminate jurors on the basis of race violated the Commonwealth constitution.

Peremptory challenges allow attorneys to reject usually up to 16 potential jurors without giving a reason for the dismissal.

In the 1977 trial of the three black defendants, assistant district attorney Thomas J. Mundy Jr. used peremptory challenges to reject 12 of the 13 black jurors whom the trial judge found fit to serve.

Mundy used peremptory challenges to eliminate 34 per cent of the white jurors.

The court reached its verdict unanimously. One concurring opinion accompanied Liacos's 41-page majority opinion.

Owens said yesterday, "I am estatic. I am elated. This is a landmark decision, the first time in the history of the commonwealth that our supreme judicial court has said that a peremptory challenge to exclude blacks systematically violates the state constitution."

Massachusetts now joins California as the only states to prohibit peremptory challenges solely on the basis of race. The United States Supreme Court in the 1965 case of Swain v. Alabama, upheld lawyers' consideration of race in their use of peremptory challenges.

Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law, said yesterday, "It's tragic that the alleged killers of an outstanding young man could be vehicles for striking down a bad rule, but Swain is one of the worst abominations of American constitutional justice."

"This is the best news that one could hear.... The racist use of prosecution is rampant," Dershowitz added.

Mundy, who prosecuted both the original trial and the appeal, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, said yesterday the decision "means unfortunately that our students have to go through the trial again, and I do regret that." Several Harvard football players testified in the original trial.

"The reasons for the decision, however, I'm sure have been justified by the court," Epps added.