Judge denies bid for new trial in 1994 Greenfield homicide

GREENFIELD -- Superior Court Judge Michael K. Callan on Thursday issued a decision denying the request for a new trial by a former Chicopee man convicted in the 1994 slaying of 27-year-old Pernell Kimplin in Greenfield.

Elvio Marrero, who had been convicted of first degree murder by a jury following his 1996 trial in Franklin Superior Court, had filed a motion seeking a new trial based on his assertions that he received ineffective counsel at his trial, that the Commonwealth had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence and that subsequent DNA testing was evidence of innocence.

This was Marrero’s fourth unsuccessful attempt to overturn his murder conviction.  The Supreme Judicial Court upheld his conviction on appeal in 1998, and two previous motions for new trial—filed in 2002 and 2011—were also denied.

His fourth and latest motion was filed in 2020, after which, over a period of three days in December of 2021 and February 2022, Judge Callan oversaw an evidentiary hearing on the matter.

Appellate prosecutors Cynthia Von Flatern and Bethany Lynch, along with First Assistant District Attorney Steven Gagne, represented the Commonwealth at the hearing, during which they called witnesses including former Assistant District Attorney Renee Steese, who prosecuted the case in 1996, and several witnesses who testified in the trial. Marrero was represented by Attorney Ira Gant of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, who called three witnesses on the defendant’s behalf.

Three months after that hearing, Assistant District Attorney Lynch argued the Commonwealth’s case against a new trial at a hearing in May 2022.

In his 32-page ruling, Callan found that Marrero’s defense team did not fail him, and that while some potentially favorable evidence had not been provided to Marrero, it was nothing that would have impacted the jury’s deliberation. He also found that subsequent DNA testing did not support Marrero’s claim of innocence, nor was DNA a central factor in the prosecution’s case against him.

Judge Callan wrote: “In conclusion, Marrero has not shown that the results of the post-conviction DNA testing and analysis would probably have been a factor in the jury's deliberations or that this new evidence casts real doubt on the justice of the conviction.” 

“It’s been nearly three decades and several legal challenges in the quest for justice for the victim in this case, Pernell Kimplin, and his family as well,” said Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan. “It is our obligation to keep working on behalf of victims no matter how long it takes. It is gratifying that once again, a judge has affirmed this conviction.”

Marrero now has the right to appeal the denial of the motion for new trial, which would be heard by the Supreme Judicial Court.

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Criminal charges are based on probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime. All defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.