Rosemary Scapicchio asked Adam Lally whether he had ever gone to Quincy District Court to pull copies of the six search warrants that never reached the defense. The prosecutor who tried Karen Read twice answered, “I wish I had.”
That was Tuesday in Norfolk Superior Court, on Lally’s third day on the witness stand in a case that is not the Karen Read case. And it points at something the coverage of this motion has mostly missed: the argument that may actually get Myles King’s murder indictment dismissed is not the one about Michael Proctor’s racism. It is the ordinary, unglamorous one about discovery.
What happened Tuesday
Lally was the first of five witnesses at the continued evidentiary hearing on King’s motion to dismiss. King is charged with fatally shooting 25-year-old Marquis Simmons in Milton in 2021. He has pleaded not guilty.
Scapicchio first moved to dismiss in May 2025 over the late disclosure of thousands of pages of discovery, including six search warrants. She has supplemented that motion twice. The first supplement deals with the discovery failures. The second raises the racial bias theory we wrote about yesterday.
Judge Peter Krupp largely barred Scapicchio from questioning Lally about Proctor’s biases. So what filled three days of testimony was the first supplement.
What Lally conceded
Two failures, and they are different in kind.
The six search warrants. Proctor authored them. They were filed in Quincy District Court. They were never turned over. Lally testified he was not aware they had not been disclosed.
The DNA. According to the defense, Lally slow-rolled DNA testing that excluded King as a contributor to DNA found on the gun used in the shooting. Evidence that excludes the defendant from the murder weapon is not a technicality.
Neither surfaced until a different prosecutor, Jennifer Hickman, took over the case while Lally was working on the Read trial.
Lally told the court he was not deliberately withholding anything. His explanation was that he asked investigators for everything and believed he had received it. “I trusted when they said I had everything, that was true,” he testified. “I didn’t leave it up to them to determine. I indicated I wanted everything they had.”
Scapicchio told reporters afterward that the testimony amounted to an admission that Lally “made mistakes.” She added: “They tried to present a scenario where his notices of discovery meant something. But he sat on that stand and said, ‘Oh no, if I gave you a discovery notice, it definitely went to you,’ and that’s just not what the evidence shows.”
Why “I trusted them” is not the answer he needs it to be
This is the legal heart of Tuesday, and it is settled Massachusetts law rather than a novel theory.
A prosecutor’s disclosure obligation is not limited to what is sitting in the prosecutor’s own file. In Commonwealth v. Tucceri, 412 Mass. 401 (1992), the Supreme Judicial Court put it directly: “A prosecutor’s duty, however, extends only to exculpatory evidence in the prosecutor’s possession or in the possession of the police who participated in the investigation and presentation of the case,” citing Commonwealth v. Daye, 411 Mass. 719, 734 (1992).
Read the second half of that sentence. Evidence in the hands of the investigating police is treated as the prosecutor’s for disclosure purposes. The duty is constructive, not actual. Six warrants written by the lead investigator in this case, sitting in a courthouse file, were within that duty whether or not Lally personally knew they existed.
Tucceri also describes why the rule is built that way. Prosecutors “are agents of the State and often have access to information that defendants may not have,” and their duties “to administer justice fairly, and particularly concerning requested or obviously exculpatory evidence, go beyond winning convictions.” The court acknowledged that these obligations “are inconsistent with the traditional adversary role of litigants,” and imposed them anyway.
So a good-faith failure is still a failure. Whether Lally acted deliberately goes to a different question, which is what remedy follows.
The remedy problem
Here is where Scapicchio’s discovery argument gets hard, and it is worth being honest about it.
Most of the law about nondisclosure, including Tucceri itself and Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), is about what happens after a conviction. The question there is whether the withheld evidence undermines confidence in a verdict that already exists. King has not been tried. The warrants and the DNA results were eventually produced. The ordinary remedy when material surfaces late before trial is disclosure plus time, and King has had both.
To get dismissal rather than a continuance, Scapicchio has to show that the delay itself caused prejudice that cannot now be cured. That is a real argument in a case this old, involving witness memory and investigative paths not taken, but it is an argument she has to build rather than one the record hands her.
Krupp is narrowing the case, and said so from the bench
With Proctor unavailable and retired State Police Lieutenant Brian Tully unavailable Tuesday, Scapicchio called four Milton police officers: Deputy Chief Michael Collins, Henry Colligan, John Binda and Lieutenant Brian Cherry.
Her subject was how the department came to believe that Simmons, before he lost consciousness, identified his killer as “Mizzie Cash,” a name King has used on social media. Colligan is the officer who says he heard it. Collins testified he learned it from Cherry, who heard it from Colligan. Binda testified that he told Cherry about King’s connection to the name. Cherry said Colligan told him at the scene; Colligan and Binda both said the conversation happened by phone.
Krupp interrupted from the bench. He said he was “hard pressed to understand” why the identification issue was relevant to the motions to dismiss at all. “I understand what’s at issue, and I don’t see that this is relevant,” he said.
Scapicchio’s answer was that she was making a “really important point,” countering the prosecution’s position that much of the key evidence in the case was gathered before Proctor was ever involved. That is a coherent response. If the identification that started the case traveled through three officers with inconsistent accounts of how, then the claim that the case stands on a clean pre-Proctor foundation is weaker.
Whether it belongs in a motion to dismiss is a different question, and on that Krupp has the better of it procedurally. Contradictions between officers about who told whom are classic cross-examination material for a trial, not usually a basis for ending a prosecution.
What Scapicchio said about the judge
After the hearing she accused Krupp of preventing King from fully litigating the motion.
“He knows exactly where I’m going and what I’m doing,” she said, noting that Krupp worked as a defense lawyer before his appointment. “He’s pretending like he doesn’t because to acknowledge what they did in this case would require him to dismiss the case, and I don’t think he has any intention of doing that.” She added: “The bottom line here is that Myles King’s case has been significantly curtailed due to the decisions of this judge.”
That is a lawyer speaking to reporters about a judge who has not ruled yet. It is unusually direct. It is also, functionally, the beginning of an appellate record: a claim that evidentiary rulings prevented the motion from being litigated is the kind of argument that gets made again later, in writing.
Two corrections to what was expected
The bias expert did not testify. Coverage last week indicated the September 22 session would feature the defense expert on racial bias. It did not. Tully was unavailable, and the expert is now expected on November 30, if Krupp allows the testimony at all.
Proctor’s Fifth Amendment ruling is not final. Krupp found last week that Proctor had a valid basis to invoke. Scapicchio said afterward that Krupp has requested additional documents from Proctor’s lawyer before making a final decision on whether the privilege applies. Proctor could still be compelled to testify. Anyone who wrote last week that Proctor will never take the stand in this case, including us, was ahead of the record.
What happens next
The hearing resumes November 30 with Tully and, if Scapicchio gets her way, the bias expert. After that, Krupp hears argument on whether four hearing dates of evidence require dismissal.
If he dismisses, the reasoning becomes the template for the other cases Proctor investigated, which the State Police have said number in the hundreds at least. If he does not, King goes to trial in January.
What happened at the September 22 Myles King hearing?
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally testified for a third day about discovery failures, followed by four Milton police officers. The defense expert on racial bias did not testify. The hearing continues November 30.
What did Lally admit?
That six search warrants authored by Michael Proctor were not disclosed and that he was unaware of it, and, asked whether he had gone to Quincy District Court to obtain copies, that “I wish I had.” He testified he was not deliberately withholding evidence.
Does a prosecutor have to disclose evidence held by police?
Yes. Commonwealth v. Tucceri states that the duty extends to exculpatory evidence in the prosecutor’s possession “or in the possession of the police who participated in the investigation and presentation of the case.”
Why might that not lead to dismissal?
Because King has not been tried and the material was eventually produced. The usual remedy for late disclosure before trial is disclosure plus additional time. Dismissal requires showing prejudice that cannot be cured.
Will Michael Proctor testify?
Possibly. Krupp found last week that he had a valid basis to invoke the Fifth Amendment, but the defense says the judge has requested further documents from Proctor’s lawyer before deciding finally.
When is the trial?
January, if the case is not dismissed.
Account of the September 22, 2026 hearing, including all quotations from Adam Lally, Rosemary Scapicchio and Judge Peter Krupp, the five witnesses, the November 30 continuance and the January trial date, from MassLive’s report of the hearing, September 22, 2026, as syndicated by Yahoo News. Earlier hearing details from the Boston Globe, September 15, 2026, and Boston 25 News, August 27, 2026. Commonwealth v. Tucceri, 412 Mass. 401 (1992) read in full on CourtListener, including its quotation of Commonwealth v. Daye, 411 Mass. 719 (1992); Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) verified. We have not reviewed the Norfolk Superior Court docket or the motions themselves. Michael Proctor has not been charged with any crime. Myles King has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.