Benjamin LaGuer (May 1, 1963 – November 4, 2020) was an American convicted criminal serving a life sentence in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

for rape. He did not acknowledge the crime for which he was convicted, claiming innocence. His case achieved prominence in the late 1980s when reporting by John King discovered a

juror A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make Question of fact, findings of fact, and render an impartiality, impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty or Judgmen ...

who said that other members of the all-white-male jury uttered racist slurs before and during deliberations. His case became a flashpoint in the 2006 race for Massachusetts Governor when it was revealed that

Deval Patrick Deval Laurdine Patrick (born July 31, 1956) is an American politician who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He was the first African Americans, African-American Governor of Massachusetts and the first Democratic Pa ...

, the Democratic candidate, had corresponded with and supported the inmate over a period of several years. He died in a Massachusetts prison hospital of liver disease aged 57.

Early life

LaGuer was born in

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

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and grew up in New York and

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

until age 15 when he moved to

Leominster, Massachusetts Leominster ( ) is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the second-largest city in Worcester County, with a population of 43,222 at the 2023 census. Leominster is located north of Worcester and northwest of Boston. Bo ...

to live with a half sister who was his father's daughter from a previous marriage. He attended high school in Leominster before dropping out in late 1980 to join the Army where he served in a support capacity in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. With a discharge from the Army, he returned to Leominster in June 1983. On the morning of July 13, 1983 police were summoned to his neighbor's apartment where they discovered a 59-year-old woman bound and beaten. It was quickly determined to be a rape case. Two days later, on July 15, 1983, LaGuer was charged with the crime. He proclaimed his innocence but was convicted in Worcester Superior Court the following January and given a life sentence with eligibility for parole after 15 years.

Challenges to the conviction

Soon after starting his prison term LaGuer began studying in the law library and learned how to access the legal system on his own behalf and for other inmates. In 1991, a challenge LaGuer launched to his conviction two years earlier went all the way to the

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the distinction of being the oldest continuously fu ...

which rendered a landmark ruling in LaGuer's favor. At issue was whether an affidavit given by

William Nowick that other members of the all-white-male panel made racist comments before and during deliberations constituted a violation of LaGuer's right to a fair trial. Even though the state's high court sided with LaGuer as a matter of law, it did not overturn the verdict, instead sending it back to the trial judge, Robert Mulkern, for a finding of fact. After a hearing in which some jurors were called to testify, Judge Mulkern ruled that the jury's deliberations were not tainted by racism. LaGuer exhausted his last appeal of that decision in 1994, more than ten years after his conviction. The case became well known among activists, academics, and journalists, who came to believe strongly that LaGuer had suffered a gross miscarriage of justice. Starting in 1986, reporters who looked at the case found troubling questions about whether LaGuer in fact committed the crime. Among those who took an interest in the case and who corresponded with LaGuer were

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...

laureate

Elie Wiesel Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates#1980, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel bibliogra ...

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

winning author

William Styron William Clark Styron Jr. (June 11, 1925 – November 1, 2006) was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work. Early life Styron was born in the Hilton Village historic district of Newport News, Virginia, the so ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

professor

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950), popularly known by his childhood nickname "Skip", is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of t ...

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

professor

Charles Ogletree Charles James Ogletree Jr. (December 31, 1952 – August 4, 2023) was an American legal scholar who served as the Jesse Climenko Professor at Harvard Law School, where he was the founder of the school's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for ...

, and WBUR radio personality Jose Masso, who created the Benjamin LaGuer papers collection at

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

. During that time LaGuer also earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude from

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

and won a first place

International PEN PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internati ...

award for an essay on his mother. In 1998, LaGuer was for the first time eligible for parole but was denied because he refused to admit to the crime. At that point he attracted an unlikely ally in

president and 1990 Democratic candidate for governor of

John Silber John Robert Silber (August 15, 1926 – September 27, 2012) was an American academician and candidate for public office. From 1971 to 1996, he was President of Boston University (BU) and, from 1996 to 2002, Chancellor. From 2002 to 2003, he again ...

, who helped arrange for pro bono legal representation. His team, which included members of McDermott, Will & Emery, the law firm

William Weld William is a masculine given name of Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is ...

, Silber's opponent in the governor's race, had belonged to, successfully sued the parole board and forced a second hearing at which LaGuer was again denied parole.

Response to a DNA test that backfired

His legal team, led by law professor David Siegel, a founding member of the New England

Innocence Project Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and other forms of post-conviction relief, as well as advocates for criminal justice reform to prevent futur ...

, then sought and found the physical evidence from the crime and in 1999 McDermott, Will & Emery managing partner Robert Cordy, now a member of the

, wrote to the Worcester District Attorney in an attempt to establish a protocol for

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

testing. The district attorney, John Conte, a former State Senator appointed by Governor

Michael Dukakis Michael Stanley Dukakis ( ; born November 3, 1933) is an American politician and lawyer who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history and only the s ...

in 1976 to finish an unexpired term, rebuffed Cordy, in turn intimating that LaGuer's team may have tampered with the evidence. After more than two years of contentious and costly litigation a DNA test revealed a trace amount of LaGuer's genetic material in the evidence. Several forensic DNA experts, including Applied DNA Resources principal Theodore Kessis,

John Jay College The John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) is a public college focused on criminal justice and located in New York City. It is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY). John Jay was founded as the only liberal arts col ...

of Criminal Justice Associate Provost Lawrence Kobilinsky and

geneticist

Daniel Hartl Daniel L. Hartl (born 1943) is the Higgins Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is also a principal investigator at the Hartl Laboratory at Harvard University. His research interes ...

, questioned the DNA test, and called for an investigation into its validity. LaGuer continued to maintain his innocence and attracted the pro bono services of another high powered international law firm,

Goodwin Procter Goodwin Procter LLP is an American multinational law firm. It is one of the largest law firms in the world as measured by revenue and consists of more than 1,800 lawyers across offices in Boston, Cambridge, Frankfurt, Munich, Hong Kong, London, ...

, where James C. Rehnquist, a partner at the firm and son of then U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice

William Rehnquist William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney who served as the 16th chief justice of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2005, having previously been an associate justice from 1972 to 1986. ...

, took over LaGuer's case. In February 2004, Rehnquist filed a motion for a new trial in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the list of United States cities by population, 113th most populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester ...

Superior Court seeking a new trial on the basis of a

Massachusetts State Police The Massachusetts State Police (MSP) is an agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, responsible for law enforcement and vehicle regulation across the state. As of 2024, it has 2,500 sworn troop ...

report generated the day LaGuer was arrested showing that four fingerprints found on the base of the trimline telephone, the cord of which was used to bind the victim's wrists, did not match the defendant's. This revelation prompted concern from several lawmakers, including State Senator

Jarrett Barrios Jarrett Tomás Barrios is an American politician and activist. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of the American Red Cross Los Angeles Region. Prior to this, he was the CEO of the American Red Cross of Massachusetts. Barrios was a member o ...

, who made a written inquiry to the State Police crime lab. Rehnquist's position that the suppression of potentially exculpatory evidence (revealed in November 2001, almost 18 years after the trial) constituted a violation of LaGuer's right to a fair trial, was rejected by Worcester Superior Court Judge Timothy Hillman. Rehnquist appealed the decision where he was again denied. In June 2006, the

agreed to hear the case. On March 23, 2007, the Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld LaGuer's conviction.

Political use of the LaGuer case in the Massachusetts Governor's race

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

, the LaGuer case became a dominant issue in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race between Republican Lieutenant Governor

Kerry Healey Kerry Murphy Healey (born April 30, 1960) is an American politician and educator serving as President Emerita of Babson College. She previously served as the 70th lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 under Governor Mitt Romne ...

and Democrat

. It was revealed that Patrick had petitioned the parole board in 1998 and 2000 for LaGuer's freedom and had contributed financially to the DNA testing. In his letters to the parole board Patrick characterized LaGuer as "thoughtful and eloquent." He was criticized in two widely used television ads, considered by some analysts to be among the most negative in the 2006 campaign season. In one ad featuring a woman walking alone in a parking garage, the narrator asks, "have you ever heard a woman compliment a rapist?" The ad was widely perceived as backfiring on Healey because of its negative tone. Patrick ultimately won the race by a margin of more than 20 percentage points.

Developments since 2006

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard LaGuer's appeal on January 4, 2007, and a ruling was rendered on March 23, 2007. The SJC unanimously upheld LaGuer's conviction.News story reporting the upheld conviction by The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'', March 23, 2007 Soon after the decision a former caretaker to the victim stepped forward with new information about the victim's state of mind before and after the crime which raised previously unknown questions about the reliability of her identification. In March 2009, retired Superior Court Judge Isaac Borentstein took the case. On December 15, 2021, the University of Massachusetts announced that th
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives
had acquired LaGuer's prison papers and was making them the center of a repository of a growing collection relating to LaGuer's case, life, and emerging legacy.

References

External links

*Th
Benjamin LaGuer papers, 1984-2000 (bulk 1998-2000)
are located in the Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Boston, MA. {{DEFAULTSORT:Laguer, Benjamin 20th-century African-American people Puerto Rican rapists Puerto Rican activists Puerto Rican prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Massachusetts American people convicted of rape 1963 births 2020 deaths Criminals from the Bronx Criminals from Massachusetts Military personnel from New York City People from Leominster, Massachusetts