Ex-Death Row Inmate Set Free

One of the last men to face the death penalty in Massachusetts walked out of a courtroom free Thursday, 30 years after he was jailed in the slaying of a transit worker.

Laurence Adams, 51, was released on his own recognizance after a judge’s decision to overturn his conviction last month. Adams said he harbored no grudge against the prosecutors and police who put him in prison.

“You can’t be bitter because you can’t stop the clock,” he said. “I did what I had to do in the circumstances in which I was placed. I did everything positive, and I hoped for this day.”

Adams was sentenced to the electric chair in 1974, but the state’s capital punishment law was abolished soon after.

He asked for a new trial seven years ago, after police documents surfaced casting doubt on his guilt, including a statement from a witness who said two other people committed the murder.

Superior Court Judge Robert A. Mulligan vacated the conviction against Adams to “avoid a miscarriage of justice.”

Prosecutors have until Monday to ask for the charges to be dismissed or appeal Mulligan’s decision. A spokesman for Suffolk County Dist. Atty. Daniel Conley said the office was still deciding what to do.

Adams said his immediate plans included going fishing and taking a bath, something he had not done in 30 years.

He was 21 when he was convicted of killing James Corry, a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority worker, on Nov. 27, 1972, during a robbery of cash boxes in a downtown Boston subway station.

Adams’ attorney, John J. Barter, also found that the state’s star witness had changed his story several times. Another witness recanted her testimony before she died.