Commonwealth v. Rosario

The defendant, Victor Rosario, was convicted in 1983 of one count of arson in a dwelling house and eight counts of murder in the second degree; all the charges stem from a fire that occurred in 1982. In 2012, the defendant filed the motion for a new trial at issue here, arguing principally that newly discovered evidence regarding fire science and the conditions under which he confessed to the crime warranted a new trial. Following an evidentiary hearing, a Superior Court judge who was not the trial judge allowed the motion, ruling that the defendant had presented newly discovered evidence,…