AUGUSTA, Maine — Editor's note: The video above aired March 8, 2022.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday rejected a request for a new trial filed by attorneys for the man convicted of killing a sheriff's deputy in 2018.
Cpl. Eugene Cole of the Somerset County Sheriff's Office was shot and killed while trying to arrest Williams in Norridgewock on a drug charge in April 2018.
John D. Williams admitted to shooting Cole but pleaded not guilty to murder, saying drugs and fear of going to jail made him shoot Cole. He was convicted of murder in June 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.
A previous appeal in 2020 was rejected by the law court.
In March 2022, Williams' attorney, Verne Paradie, again asked for a new trial because he said he didn't learn until after Williams was convicted and sentenced that one of the Maine State Police troopers involved in Williams' arrest had been disciplined for failing to report another officer's physical misconduct toward Williams during his arrest.
"Had that information been known to us, we could have presented that to the jury to make the jury more likely to believe our theory," Paradie told NEWS CENTER Maine last year. "[Mr. Williams] basically told the investigating officers what they wanted to hear because he was afraid of further retaliation by the police.”
According to Tuesday's decision, the trooper failed to initially report that another trooper was "striking Williams twice while handcuffing him" and was suspended for eight days.
But justices ruled the information "would not have added anything to Williams's attempt to convince the jury that his confession was motivated by fear." Furthermore, they said Williams failed to show a "reasonable probability" that, had his attorneys known, the result of the trial would have been different.