ATTLEBORO - A church deacon convicted in the 1994 killing of a city man with a crossbow in a roadside dispute on Interstate 95 is appealing his case again to the state Supreme Judicial Court.
Donald S. Graham, of Woonsocket, R.I., cited erroneous rulings by the trial judge and the failure of officials to advise him of his rights under the Vienna Convention because he was a resident alien with Canadian citizenship.
Graham, who is now 68, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at a state prison in Shirley for the Feb. 20, 1994, murder of Michael Blodgett, 42, of Attleboro.
Graham shot Blodgett with a razor-tipped bolt from a crossbow on the side of I-95 South after a dispute in which prosecutors said Graham acted as "the self-appointed guardian of the highway."
Blodgett, an emergency medical technician for a private ambulance company, was off duty and traveling home when he became involved in an exchange of high-beams on the highway with Graham.
Graham testified he acted in self-defense, but a jury rejected that claim and convicted him of first-degree murder.
Donald Graham is led into Attleboro District Court for his arraignment on charges of murder with a crossbow in this 1994 file photo.
The SJC upheld the conviction in April 2000.
Last year, a single justice of the high court denied Graham's newest appeal. The case will now be argued before the full court April 8. Graham is seeking a new trial.
Graham now asserts the trial judge made erroneous statements in his ruling regarding defense objections during the jury instruction phase of the trial, according to documents filed by his lawyer, Thomas M. Dickinson of Providence.
Because of the errors, Dickinson argues, Graham was not able to fully litigate the issue on his direct appeal for a new trial.
In addition, Dickinson argues that Graham was deprived of his rights under the Vienna Convention, which provides that any foreign national arrested must have access to consular officers who could visit and obtain legal representation.
In her brief, Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Shoshana Stern argues that Graham's argument about the judicial errors has already been decided.
She added that the SJC reviews the trial record on its own, rather than simply relying on the trial judge's representations of the case.
Regarding Graham's argument about his rights under the Vienna Convention, Stern said Graham failed to prove Canada would have acted in any way that would have altered the outcome of the case.
