99 lifers to seek new trials, claiming self defense

A father and son found guilty in one of the city's more notorious Mob rubouts - the 1995 quadruple murder at the Charlestown 99 - go before the Supreme Judicial Court today to try to get their multiple life sentences overturned.

Anthony Clemente, Sr., was convicted of four counts of first degree murder and related charges in 1997; son Damian was convicted of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder, along with other charges. Both were sentenced to multiple life terms.

In his brief, the elder Clemente says the shootings were actually in self defense because one of the dead men reached for a gun in a fanny pack first - and that the four men were planning to kill his son. But, he charges, he was not allowed access to all police records related to the shooting, including an inventory of the fanny pack - or to provide evidence that the man was himself a cold-blooded killer. In 2005, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that defendants could introduce such "prior violent conduct" into evidence.

He also charges his own lawyer at the time screwed up his defense and that two jurors who claimed to have read a Herald story about the case should have been dismissed, but weren't.

The Suffolk County District Attorney's office opposes their requests. In its brief - which provides details of the murder and incidents leading up to it - the DA's office says the judge in their trial allowed the defendants to introduce "considerable" evidence of the dead men's violent past, enough to let jurors consider that in their deliberations.