"Court overturns Jay Procopio’s guilty plea years later" by John R. Ellement | Globe Staff, March 16, 2013
A former Woburn man who protested his innocence even as a judge sentenced him to life behind bars for murdering his infant son won a key legal victory Friday that could free him from state prison where he has been incarcerated for nearly 20 years.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled that Jay Procopio should not have been allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder in Middlesex Superior Court on April 22, 1993, before now-retired Superior Court Judge Katherine Liacos Izzo.
According to the Appeals Court, Procopio repeatedly insisted that his 5-month-old son’s death was an accident and, by doing so, made his guilty plea constitutionally flawed. The court overturned the guilty plea.
“In his answers to multiple questions, the defendant responded: ‘I did not throw him to the floor. I swear to God,’ ‘I was just playing, throwing him up in the air,’ ‘I didn’t throw him; he fell. He fell out of my hands,’ ‘[He fell] by accident,’ ‘[By accident] I swear to God today,’ ‘I didn’t think that would happen like that,’ ’’ the Appeals Court said in its unsigned ruling.
“Far from acknowledging actions that constituted murder in the second degree, the defendant’s responses amounted to a claim of accident,’’ the Appeals Court said. “The judge should have rejected the plea, and let the indictment stand for trial.’’
Procopio’s appellate attorney, Sandra Bloomenthal, said Friday that she hopes that her client, who is now in his 50s, will soon be released from state prison....
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