The Suffolk district attorney has dropped an effort to retry a Black Boston man who had spent decades in prison for a murder he insisted he did not commit.
In a Massachusetts Superior Court filing, the Suffolk district attorney’s office said given the decision of a “crucial witness” to change his testimony, it would not pursue a second trial of Joseph Bennett, who had been convicted of second-degree murder in connection with a 1997 shooting and was awaiting a new trial.
“After reviewing the current state of the evidence … and the passage of nearly twenty-seven years, the Commonwealth has concluded that it cannot prove the murder charge again beyond a reasonable doubt,” the filing reads.
A spokesperson for Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden declined further comment.
Bennett, 50, had maintained his innocence and sought a new trial in the shooting of Jasper Gillard in the Rolls Club in Mattapan. He served 22 years for the second-degree murder conviction before he was granted a retrial and released in 2019.
“They didn’t have a single witness to say he did it. And we were ready to call, you know, ten-plus witnesses to say that it was actually another witness who did the shooting,”said Jennifer O’Brien, an attorney for Bennett.
O’Brien said witnesses to the nightclub murder had been reluctant to come forward but changed their minds over the years
“They all had their own reasons for why they didn’t come forward initially,” said O’Brien. “Most of them, they were criminals themselves. They had criminal records. They didn’t talk to police.”
A second lawyer for Bennett said his client insisted on a second trial to clear his name, despite the “risk” that he could be again found guilty.
“He was so adamant about maintaining his integrity, his reputation and his innocence,” said attorney Lorenzo Perez, “he still maintained his innocence regardless of the risk he was facing.”
A Facebook post by Stephen Pina Sr., who was himself wrongly convicted and released, congratulated Bennett on the prosecutor’s decision.
Bennett founded YardTime, an organization that supports returning citizens and advocates for breaking the cycle of incarceration of Black and brown men.
In early January, Bennett spoke of his own family trauma and his work to support those exiting prison.
“When we come home we want to do good, but we don’t have the tools to get right. It’s hard for us to get back to adjusted. If you let somebody come out after 22 years, what do you expect him to have for motivation and aspirations and goals if he’s not having a proper support system?” he said in a conversation on “Java with Jimmy Live at GBH” with James “Jimmy” Hills.
Bennett’s uncle is Willie Bennett, the man wrongly targeted as the suspect in the murder of Carol Stuart, a white woman, in 1989.
Stuart’s husband, a white man, had fatally shot his pregnant wife and blamed the murder on a Black man. The phony story set off the besieging of Black neighborhoods by police in search of a suspect and tore the city apart along racial lines.
Late last year, Mayor Michelle Wu formally apologized to Willie Bennett and Alan Swanson, another man wrongly linked to the murder.
“In accepting this apology I wish to emphasize the importance of strength resiliency empathy and growth,” said Joseph Bennett at that public event, “It’s through these principles that we change the narrative so the world can be informed of what transpired 34 years ago and begin the process of healing from our trauma once again.”
