In November 2024, a Massachusetts jury awarded $13 million to former state prisoner Michael Sullivan, 64, as compensation for his wrongful conviction for a 1986 armed robbery and murder. Sullivan’s case involved false laboratory test results, as well as a prosecutorial plea bargain that obtained false testimony from the real murderer.

Sullivan was convicted by a jury of the armed robbery and first-degree murder of Wilfred McGrath. Initially, police had another suspect, Gary Grace. Overwhelming forensic evidence—including traces of blood on a towel and an electric extension cord similar to that found with McGrath’s body—were found in Grace’s apartment. Grace’s fingerprints and McGrath’s blood and hair were found in Sullivan’s vehicle, which Emil Petrla borrowed on the evening of McGrath’s murder. Police arrested and charged Grace with murder and armed robbery.

During questioning by police, Grace acknowledged that McGrath died in his apartment. Nonetheless, Grace maintained his innocence and implicated Sullivan, Petrla, and Steven Angier. The prosecution struck a deal with Grace; it withdrew the indictments against him in return for his testimony against the others and a guilty plea to “accessory after the fact.”

At a March 1987 trial in Middlesex County Superior Court, Grace offered as evidence a “fabricated and self-serving narrative [that] detailed the brutal beating of McGrath, which involved Sullivan allegedly stomping on McGrath’s head numerous times,” Sullivan’s civil rights complaint alleged. 

Grace further testified that Sullivan was wearing a purple jacket on the night of the murder. The jacket was tested by Robert Pino, a chemical analyst with the Massachusetts State Police. He testified that he found blood on the cuffs of Sullivan’s jacket. Pino further testified that a hair found in the jacket’s pocket matched McGrath and was not Sullivan’s. Pino also matched the blood found in Grace’s apartment and Sullivan’s car, and the hairs found in the car, with McGrath.

Petrla testified for Sullivan’s defense at trial, admitting his own guilt. He noted that Sullivan was not even present when Grace started a fight with McGrath, which then culminated in Grace and Petrla kicking McGrath to death. Yet despite Petrla’s testimony, a jury convicted Sullivan on both charges, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Years later, Dana Curhan, an attorney who represented Sullivan in post-conviction litigation from 1992 to 2014, began pushing for DNA testing, which was not available during Sullivan’s first trial. In 2008, Curhan filed a motion for a new trial and funds for DNA testing. Although Sullivan had repeatedly claimed that no blood would be found on the purple jacket, Curhan’s request was denied.

The firing of Pino in 2007 after a 23-year career with the Massachusetts State Police had a drastic effect on Sullivan’s appeal. Investigators found that Pino allowed collection of samples not permitted by law, reported incomplete results to police and failed to report DNA database matches to prosecutors until after the statute of limitations for the crimes elapsed. 

Arguing that Pino lied at Sullivan’s trial, Curhan in 2010 filed a renewed motion for DNA testing. Following the trial court’s 2011 grant of that motion, a state crime lab and an independent lab retested the evidence. The jacket cuffs screened negative for the presence of blood, and the hair sample was “inconclusive” due to a mixture of two or more DNA profiles.

In November 2012, Sullivan’s convictions were vacated; he was released in 2013 on bond and GPS monitoring as Massachusetts sought to overturn the ruling vacating his conviction and to retry Sullivan. An appeals court affirmed the trial court’s order and, on February 28, 2019, the prosecutor’s office dismissed the charges against Sullivan.

Sullivan then brought a civil rights action against Massachusetts and Pino in state court. There, a jury found Sullivan was innocent of all charges, including lesser-included offenses. Sullivan was awarded $4 million in damages for loss of liberty and $9 million in pain and suffering and emotional distress. Unfortunately for Sullivan, a state law in Massachusetts caps compensation for wrongful convictions, resulting just a $1 million settlement payout. See: Sullivan v. Commonwealth, Mass. Super. (Suffolk Cty.), Case No. 19-1892.  

Additional sources: AP News, Boston Globe

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