PROVIDENCE, R.I (WPRI) — The Attorney General Peter Kilmartin’s Office has filed a petition for reargument in the Tempest case with the RI Supreme Court, as of Monday afternoon.
This motion has been filed after Raymond “Beaver” Tempest became entitled to a new trial this month when the court upheld the decision from last July that Tempest did not receive a fair trial.
The RI Supreme Court stated that they found police and prosecutors violated Tempest’s right to a fair trial by suggestively questioning witnesses, failing to disclose evidence, and suppressing details about a witness’s changing statements.
Reasoning for the conviction being overturned circles around a statement made to the former prosecutor about a puppy. A witness had stated 17 days before the trial, “on the day of the murder, Tempest’s children were excited about getting a puppy.” The court ruled the prosecutor suppressed that statement “for the purpose of obstructing.”
The state had originally opposed the conviction being overturned.
Tempest was previously convicted for beating and strangling a woman to death in Woonsocket in 1982. He spend 23 years in jail and was released on bail in September.
This is only the third time in the last 25 years that the Attorney General’s office is asking the Supreme Court to reargue a case.
