Pring-Wilson To Appeal Guilty Verdict

A Harvard grad student convicted of manslaughter on Oct. 15 filed a notice Monday of plans to appeal the decision.

Alexander Pring-Wilson, 26, a former student at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies was found guilty of fatally stabbing Cambridge teen Michael D. Colono after an altercation outside a local pizza parlor in April 2003.

He faces six to eight years in prison.

Defense lawyers argued that Pring-Wilson acted in self-defense after being attacked by Colono, while the prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Lynch, claimed that Pring-Wilson was the aggressor in the fight and deserved a first-degree murder conviction.

After a month-long trial and 21 hours of deliberation, a jury convicted Pring-Wilson on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter—murder performed without premeditation or excessive cruelty.

Attorney E. Peter Parker said he must receive a transcript of the trial before filing the official brief for the appeal.

The court recorder could complete transcript within a month or two, according to Middlesex District Attorney spokeswoman Emily J. LaGrassa.

“Then we have the opportunity to file a brief, and then they set a date for an argument in appeals court,” she said. “They say why they should be allowed an appeal, we will argue our opposition.”

Pring-Wilson is currently serving time at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Concord, a prison ranked level four for security, on a scale where six means maximum security, according to Department of Corrections spokeswoman Diane Wiffin.

“They brought him there right after the sentencing,” Wiffin said, adding that Pring-Wilson will remain in the Concord prison until he is assigned to the prison where he will serve the bulk of his sentence in about 30 days.

But Wiffin said it is too soon to tell whether Pring-Wilson will be transferred to a prison with less or more security.

Parker said it is very unlikely that Pring-Wilson will be released from prison until an appeal decision is reached.

A plan for an appeal like Pring-Wilson’s is typical in a case like this, according to Yale L. Galanter, a Court TV commentator and legal analyst.

“In 99.9 percent of every criminal case where somebody is convicted and incarcerated, an appeal is filed,” he said. “Not only is it appropriate [to file one], it’s almost required.”

Galanter said the appeal process usually takes about a year.

“The appellate court will look at the transcript to determine where there are any legal infirmities [in the case] as opposed to factual infirmities,” he said, citing as an example a situation where a judge admits graphic autopsy photographs as evidence that are likely to inflame a jury.

“Cases get reversed on that all the time,” he said.

But Galanter said he does not see a reason for a reversal in Pring-Wilson’s appeal.

“The global picture here is that this guy got a major break,” he said. “There is somebody who’s dead, [the jury] came back on a lesser charge and it was really a tragedy all the way around...there’s nothing in the record, at least that I saw, that would give rise to a reversal.”

Outside the court system, friends and family are finding other ways to support Pring-Wilson.

Tara L. Woody, a mother of two and a future law school student, said she formed an online support group and a petition on Pring-Wilson’s behalf after following the case on Court TV.

Woody said she started the group, which has over 150 members including Pring-Wilson’s mother, in response to what she called an unfair verdict.

“I think [District Attorney Martha] Coakley will run for Senate and I think she needs the Hispanic vote, and I feel like this was politically motivated,” she said. “I thought we needed to do something.”

Coakley said in a press conference earlier this month that she keeps her legal and political dealings separate.

Woody’s online petition had garnered 597 signatures as of yesterday. Her site is www.alexanderpringwilson.net. Colono’s friends and family also maintain a website, www.michaelcolono.com.

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