A Peabody District Court judge today scheduled an August re-trial for a Beverly Police officer charged with causing the 2007 collision that took the life of 61-year-old Bonney Burns.

STUART MERRY, 42, will go to trial Aug. 18 on a charge of motor vehicle homicide for the Jan. 20, 2007, collision between his marked cruiser and Burns’ stationary car.

On May 6, 2008, District Court Judge Robert Brennan granted Merry a new trial after Suffolk prosecutors provided Merry’s attorney with evidence that was unknown to prosecution or defense at the time of the first proceedings. At the time, Brennan noted that there was “no evidence of malfeasance” by Suffolk prosecutors, who tried the Essex County case because the defendant was a member of the local law enforcement community.

Merry’s first trial ended in a conviction on March 20, 2008, after three days of testimony. Prosecutors established that he was operating negligently when he crashed his department cruiser into Burns’ parked car. Merry was sentenced to probation and was fined, but has been at liberty throughout the post-trial developments.

A few weeks after his conviction, Suffolk prosecutors became aware of an opinion held by a member of the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section on the origin of a crack in Merry’s windshield – an opinion of which they had not previously been aware. After confirming that opinion with the trooper, prosecutors notified defense attorney Neil Rossman, who moved for a new trial and later moved to dismiss the charges entirely.

On April 16, 2009, the Supreme Judicial Court refused to dismiss the motor vehicle homicide charges, ruling in a 10-page decision that “there was no misconduct warranting dismissal” of the charges when prosecutors learned after trial of potentially exculpatory evidence.