The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard oral argument on April 18, 2024, in Commonwealth v. Dennis Bateman, where defense counsel asked the court to reverse Bateman’s conviction and grant a new trial based on newly developed audio-forensic evidence and testimony from a witness the defense says trial counsel should have called.

Amy Cotagnon, attorney for Dennis Bateman, told the court: "I'm asking that this court reverse Mr. Bateman's conviction and grant him a new trial." Cotagnon argued that newly available analysis of police interview recordings and a witness the motion judge found there was "no reasonable strategic reason for not calling" could, if believed, support Bateman’s claim of actual innocence.

Cotagnon said the defense’s audio experts — whose testimony appears in the record appendix — found anomalies they described as consistent with edits. She told the court the file history and metadata show nine different iterations of the interview file with differing hash values and inconsistent file names, which she said is inconsistent with the officer’s explanation that the recording was uploaded once from an Olympus digital device on April 20, 2005. Cotagnon said the result is both missing minutes from the recorded interview and audio breaks the experts described as "look[ing] like an edit." She told the court there are roughly 11–12 minutes the defense says are not present in the version provided to counsel and that the experts could not explain the anomalies other than by post‑recording modification.

Cotagnon also pressed that a witness, Allison Hamilton, who she said would have placed the victim alive and with another person at about 6:30 p.m., was not called at trial. She said if a jury credited Hamilton’s account, it could place a different person with the victim at a critical time and create reasonable doubt. Cotagnon further noted the presence of other forensic material — 59 unidentified fingerprints in the store, mixed DNA on the ligature and other untested biological material — that she said had not been fully explored and could be consistent with another person having been present.

The Commonwealth, represented by Stephen Gagne, urged the court to uphold the motion judge’s rulings. Gagne told the court the record shows the motion for a new trial was filed in 2018 and supplemented, that the defense sought and obtained funding for experts over 2018–2019, and that the evidentiary hearing was held in May 2019. He said the trial judge and the motion judge had the opportunity to hear the expert testimony and that the judge reasonably concluded the purported anomalies were not conclusively shown to be deliberate editing and that, in any event, the issues were not newly discovered. "It’s beyond dispute that the evidence of the defendant’s guilt in this case was overwhelming," Gagne said, noting the motion judge and this court’s earlier direct-appeal decision that referenced the DNA findings on the ligature and other forensic evidence.

On the audio issue, Gagne pointed the justices to expert testimony in the record in which analysts described anomalies as possible artifacts, using phrasing such as "could signify deliberate or inadvertent editing" or that analysts "could not say for sure" intentional editing occurred. He argued that various software tools the defense’s experts used were available years earlier and that the motion judge found the audio questions could have been raised earlier in the litigation. Gagne also noted the motion judge credited Sergeant Gaudreau’s affidavit and found no evidence of nefarious conduct in how the recordings were handled.

The justices pressed both sides on legal standards. One justice focused the defense on the newly discovered-evidence standard and on how omitted or altered audio would cast "real doubt" on the justice of the conviction without a direct affidavit from Bateman describing what specifically he said during any missing minutes. The court also questioned whether the trial judge’s weighing of witness credibility (for example, reconciling testimony from Allison Hamilton with other witnesses such as David Williams) was a matter properly left to a jury or was instead appropriate for a motion judge deciding whether the proffered material met the threshold for a new trial.

Neither side requested immediate, dispositive action from the bench at argument. Cotagnon asked the justices to consider how the newly developed evidence changes the look of the trial record; Gagne asked the court to defer to the motion judge’s findings about timing, waiver and the ultimate assessment that any anomalies did not demonstrate prejudice sufficient for a new trial.

The court heard additional factual recitations during argument: the defense's timeline describing filings (motion for new trial filed Aug. 31, 2018; supplement Oct. 4, 2018; evidentiary hearing May 2019) and the Commonwealth's contention that a later supplement was submitted extremely late (Aug. 21, 2019), nine days before the motion judge issued denial. The defense referenced technical details it says are in the record, including page citations where experts testified that certain portions of the recording "look like an edit" (defense counsel cited volume 2, page 147; volume 1, pages 155–156) and noted the date stamped on the original recording as April 20, 2005.

Forensic context was also discussed at length. The Commonwealth highlighted that Bateman’s DNA was found on the ligature used in the killing and that the defendant’s DNA was found under the victim’s fingernails; the Commonwealth counsel told the court he was not aware of any third-party DNA profiles identified on the victim’s body. Cotagnon countered that there are multiple unidentified prints in the store, mixed profiles on the strap, and other biological material that had not been tested or linked definitively to Bateman.

The justices did not announce a decision during the argument. The court’s ruling — whether it will remand for a new trial, order further proceedings, or affirm the motion judge’s denial — remains pending.

The argument illustrates competing fault lines in postconviction review: the degree to which forensic-audio anomalies and uncalled witnesses amount to newly discovered, prejudicial evidence and the extent to which a motion judge’s credibility and procedural rulings deserve deference on appeal.

A ruling in this case will resolve whether the SJC views the audio-forensics and witness issues as sufficient to overcome the previous findings and the court’s appellate standard for new trials.