The Nation - News from March 11, 1988

Massachusetts’ highest court rejected claims of an unfair trial and left standing the convictions of four men in the 1983 gang rape of a woman on a tavern pool table. In a pair of unanimous rulings, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rejected defense objections to the prosecutor’s handling of evidence and to the trial judge’s decision to keep television cameras turned away from the victim. The dramatic account of the rape given by the victim, a young mother, and the lengthy televised trial in Superior Court in 1984 drew national attention to the working-class neighborhoods of New Bedford and sparked an intense debate over rape.