Pring-Wilson Trial: Lawyers Present Closing Words

Lawyers presented passionate closing arguments yesterday as the murder trial of Alexander Pring-Wilson drew to a close.

A former Harvard graduate student, Pring-Wilson is charged with first-degree murder for stabbing Cambridge teen Michael D. Colono outside Pizza Ring in April 2003.

Defense attorney Ann Kaufman and Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Lynch each tried to paint a different agent as the aggressor in the fight, and both of their arguments hinged on the dispute over whether the defendant or the victim opened the door of the car in which Colono was sitting outside the pizza parlor, instigating the fight.

Kaufman spoke forcefully about the character of Colono and his cousin, Samuel Rodriguez, who fought with Colono against Pring-Wilson.

“Michael is impulsive, he’s always ready, he’s always on his toes,” she said.

Kaufman also pointed out that Rodriguez had acted violently in a fight with his girlfriend earlier that day. In contrast, she emphasized how this incident was an anomaly in Pring-Wilson’s history.

“What Alexander Pring-Wilson has done every day of his life,” she said, “is to try to help people and be a kind and decent human being. But it didn’t work on Western Avenue between Jay and Howard Streets. That’s not how the world works for them there.”

She affirmed that Pring-Wilson’s actions stemmed from the need for immediate self-defense.

“He did what he had to do to get the beating to stop and anyone would have done that.” Kaufman said, adding in a whisper, “anyone.”

She called the prosecution’s case “the most absurd story ever told in a courtroom in the United States.”

Prosecutor Adrienne Lynch used her closing argument to respond to Kaufman’s claims.

“The defense is desperate for you to see what they want you to see,” she said. “What matters is that when he opened the door, he became the aggressor...In his anger at these people...Alexander Pring-Wilson intentionally used that knife.”

Lynch said Pring-Wilson’s act demonstrated both premeditation and excessive cruelty, each of which would be grounds enough for convicting him of first-degree murder. She clutched Colono’s black leather jacket to her chest as she spoke of the amount of force required to break through.

Lynch said that Samuel Rodriguez’s criminal record should not decrease his credibility as a witness.

“Just because someone has a criminal conviction doesn’t make them a liar, and just because someone doesn’t have a criminal conviction doesn’t make them not a liar,” she said, pointing out that Pring-Wilson has told conflicting versions of that night’s events.

“He was cold and calculated,” she said. “He lied to the police. He told them what he thought they wanted to hear.”

Lynch added that Pring-Wilson’s emotional testimony on Tuesday, in which he broke into sobs and gasped for breath for nearly a minute, was another example of his deception.

“The over-acted, the over-scripted, over-dramatic unconvincing performance—it was like a bad game of charades,” she said.

Lynch argued that the injuries Pring-Wilson sustained don’t substantiate the defense’s claim that he was the victim.

“Sammy Rodriguez and Michael Colono were no shrinking violets, and no one is saying that they were,” he said.

“But if the defendant took [such a] severe beating...there would be more physical injury to show for it than a smirk and a welt on your forehead.”

District Attorney spokeswoman Melissa Sherman said the jury’s verdict could come at any moment.

“There’s no time limit,” Sherman said. “Some people think maybe tomorrow, some [think] maybe early next week, but that’s a guesstimate.”

—Staff writer Hana R. Alberts can be reached at alberts@fas.harvard.edu.