July 30, 2008
A state appeals court last week rejected a bid by a man who confessed to killing a 15-year-old bystander in a Geneva Avenue shootout to overturn his conviction.
Charles Bogues, 36, had admitted to firing his gun, but said he did not hit Louis D. Brown in the December 1993 gunfight and asked for his guilty plea to be tossed. Brown's murder led to the launching of the anti-violence group the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, co-founded by his mother, Tina Chery. Brown was a member of an anti-youth group and was shot while walking home from the Fields Corner MBTA station.
Justices Cynthia Cohen, Joseph Trainor and William Meade wrote the six page decision. "All of the defendant's arguments turn upon the flawed premise that he now possesses newly discovered, exculpatory evidence," they wrote. However, the evidence relied upon by the defendant is not 'newly discovered' Furthermore, the evidence relied upon does not cast 'real doubt' on the defendant's culpability."
Bogues had pleaded guilty to second degree murder and admitted to tossing the .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun he bought into Boston Harbor. The court also dismissed Bogues's claim that his attorney was ineffective and prosecutors withheld evidence that would have caused the court to doubt his guilt.
In a statement, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said, "At every turn, we have found solid, scientific, and well-documented facts to support his conviction. There is not a single aspect of the evidence suggesting that anyone but Charles Bogues, who pleaded guilty to murder, shot and killed Louis D. Brown."
Chery, who has supported Bogues's appeal while maintaining doubt over his innocence, was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday evening.
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