State v. Pona

OPINION

Justice FLAHERTY,

for the Court.

Jennifer Rivera, an eighth-grade student at Roger Williams Middle School, who stood five feet, one-inch tall and weighed all of seventy-two pounds, was murdered by Dennard Walker, who fired three gunshots into the back of her head while she was standing on the sidewalk outside her home in Providence on May 21, 2000. What distinguishes this homicide from the other mindless violence to which we sadly have become accustomed is that Jennifer had testified at a bail hearing at which she had identified a suspect in the murder of Hector Feliciano, and she was…