Gun in the snow: Rodrigues's gun (via Suffolk County DA)
A Dorchester man will have some time to contemplate a unique achievement: He is the first person convicted by a Massachusetts jury based on evidence from a handheld thermal imager, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.
Thermal imagerJose Rodrigues, 25, was convicted last week in Boston Municipal Court on a charge of illegal possession of a loaded handgun. When Rodigues was arrested after a chase through snowy Dorchester streets on Jan. 12, police didn't find a gun on him. But they did find a gun lying in the snow in a yard past which he'd run - after watching him apparently throw something there. Officers whipped out a Bullard TI Commander, which creates a heat image and showed the gun was still warm, meaning it had been held recently. Bullard normally sells the devices to fire departments, which use it for finding hidden fires and helping determine where fires started.
According to the DA's office, Massachusetts courts had previously rejected thermal-imaging images as evidence. In 2008, though, prosecutors succeeded in having Priam Pillai, an MIT graduate student in mechanical engineering, certified to testify as an expert witness in "heat-transfer technology."
After a four-day trial, Rodrigues was found guilty and sentenced to up to 2 1/2 years in jail.
"Television and movies can contribute to unrealistic or even impossible expectations when it comes to scientific evidence and testimony," DA Dan Conley said. "This case allowed us to go beyond the conventional and bring the cutting edge to bear."
One issue that did not come up at the trial: Whether the gun was, in fact, a gun. In recent weeks, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has thrown out a series of gun convictions because prosecutors relied on certificates from ballistics experts without calling them into court. Jake Wark, spokesman for the DA's office, said that was not an issue in the Rodrigues case - the office had an expert ready to testify, but Rodrigues's attorney agreed to accept his certification that the gun was actually a gun.
