BOSTON, Oct. 2, 2015—The man who murdered off-duty corrections officer Sgt. Richard Dever outside a Charlestown bar will not receive a new trial, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said today.

In a decision re-issued yesterday after being withdrawn earlier this year, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the first-degree murder conviction of FRANCIS X. LANG (D.O.B. 10/27/74) of Charlestown in the 2005 stabbing death of 35-year-old Dever.

“This was first-degree murder – nothing less,” Conley said. “The defendant received a fair trial with the benefit of experienced counsel and there was no legal or factual basis to disturb the jury’s verdict.”

In his appeal, Lang repeated many of the same claims he argued in two previous attempts for a new trial – both of which were denied by Superior Court judges.

The justices found that Lang’s right to a public trial was not violated when his sister and others were asked to step out of the courtroom in order to make room for prospective jurors during the jury selection process.

They likewise rejected Lang’s claim that his highly experienced trial attorney was ineffective for failing to pursue an insanity defense, though they did find the attorney’s failure to properly investigate Lang’s mental health history to be ineffective.  At trial, Lang’s attorney argued that Lang acted in self-defense after being attacked at Sullivan’s Pub; a Superior Court judge ruled in Lang’s earlier appeal that the attorney’s decision to pursue that defense did not amount to ineffective assistance of counsel.  In concurring decisions, Justice Geraldine Hines stated that the decision not to use an insanity defense – which the attorney deemed unlikely to succeed – was not manifestly unreasonable, while Justice Barbara Lenk determined that the jury was unlikely to have returned a different verdict had the defense focused on an alleged mental illness.

“We were extremely relieved to hear that this defendant’s conviction was affirmed,” Dever’s family said in a statement. “The SJC made the right decision.  We just want to say thank you for all the support that we have received in honor of our son, Ricky Dever.  We would like to extend our gratitude to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, and to all the friends and strangers alike who supported us through our family’s ordeal.”

During a two-week trial in 2006, prosecutors presented evidence and testimony to prove that Lang had previously been banned from Sullivan’s when he appeared at the bar on March 19, 2005 – just 22 days after his release from federal prison in an unrelated case.  Devers, who was present at the bar, was among the patrons and employees who attempted to remove Lang from the establishment after he caused a disturbance and threw a beer can at several people inside.

Once outside, the evidence showed, Lang fatally stabbed Devers four times in the chest and slashed his face.

Assistant District Attorney Jack Zanini, chief of the DA’s Appellate Unit, argued the case on appeal.  Assistant District Attorney Edmond Zabin, chief of the DA’s Homicide Unit, prosecuted the case at trial.  Lang was represented on appeal by Ruth Greenberg.

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