Gaskin v. Commissioner of Correction

It has been usual for trial judges, when instructing jurors on how to weigh the credibility of witnesses, to tell them to consider whether the witness has an interest of whatever sort in the outcome of the trial that might influence or color the witness' testimony. In the petitioner's criminal trial, however, the jury never received important evidence of a cooperating witness' interest in the outcome. This appeal requires us to examine a situation where a necessary cooperating witness, the only one who put the defendant at the crime scene with the likely murder weapon in his hand, falsely…