BOSTON, June 23, 2017— A jury today acquitted a Dorchester man of charges in connection with the 2016 death of 45-year-old Brian Hingston, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury earlier this afternoon returned verdicts of not guilty in the trial of BRYAN McELHINNEY (D.O.B. 8/17/92), who had been indicted on charges of manslaughter and assault and battery causing serious bodily injury in connection with Hingston’s death on April 17, 2016.

During the course of a weeklong trial, Assistant District Attorney Catherine Ham sought to prove that Hingston, McElhinney, and others were celebrating a birthday on the night of April 16 and into the early morning hours of April 17, when two members of the group became involved in a fistfight in an Adams Street parking lot.  Neither the victim nor the defendant was involved in the initial altercation.

McElhinney soon joined in the fight, and that Hingston intervened in an attempt to break up the fight, prosecutors told the jury.  Ham introduced evidence that McElhinney struck Hingston once in the face, knocking him to the ground.  Hingston’s head struck the pavement. He never regained consciousness and died. 

Assistant District Attorney Kristina Kerwin second-chaired Ham during the trial before Suffolk Superior Court Judge Linda Giles.  Erin O’Connor was the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate.  McElhinney was represented by Michael Doolin.
 

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.