Defense urges reversal in Williams appeal, court questions GSR use and premeditation inoral argument

BOSTON — In oral argument before the state Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Keith Williams, defense attorney Robert Shaw told the justices that the record does not support the Commonwealth’s theory that Williams deliberately planned a killing and that trial counsel left jurors without legal tools to consider defensive or mitigating theories. "Facts matter," Shaw said as he opened his argument, contending that no witness identified Williams as present at the market and that the other group "walked away" before Colas returned and drew a firearm.

Shaw argued the sequence — a brief exchange, the other group leaving, and Colas returning within seconds and pointing a gun — "negates the gun battle narrative," and he urged that the evidence shows a panicked, unplanned reaction rather than deliberate premeditation. He pressed that prosecutors relied on emotional appeals and references to evidence not before the jury, including repeated gang-related innuendo, and that those tactics prejudiced the verdict.

"This was not a case…