Law360 (September 1, 2026, 10:47 PM EDT) -- The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has affirmed the denial of a man's request to withdraw his guilty pleas to the murders of two women, saying he failed to show on appeal that serious Boston Police Department corruption in a related murder investigation tainted his own case.

Justice Serge Georges Jr. wrote in the high court's opinion Monday that defendant Craig Hood failed to show that the connections between his case and the problematic investigation of the murder of a detective who was part of a police-corruption ring were enough to cast doubt on his own conviction.

He added that prosecutors showed strong evidence — including a confession — that Hood had killed the victims, making it likely he would have pled guilty anyway.

The appeal involves two murder investigations performed in the shadow of a corruption scandal.

On Sept. 26, 1993, Boston Police Detective John Mulligan was shot and killed in his police car outside a Walgreens pharmacy.

A suspect in the slaying was Sean Ellis, who lived with his cousins, Tracy Brown and Celine Kirk. Ellis, Kirk and another man named Terry Patterson had been at the Walgreens around the time of the shooting.

On Sept. 29, 1993, three days after Mulligan's death, officers found Brown and Kirk dead in their apartment. Each had been shot in the head.

Some of the same detectives were involved in both cases. They arrested Ellis on suspicion of Mulligan's fatal shooting, and Hood in connection with the murders of Brown and Kirk.

Ellis was indicted for Mulligan's murder and tried three times. The first two trials ended in mistrial, the third in his conviction. Patterson was also convicted separately of first-degree murder for Mulligan's death.

In the double-murder investigation, a close friend of Kirk told Boston Police Detectives Daniel Keeler and John Brazil that Kirk had been arguing with Hood over a gold chain he had let her borrow. The detectives found that Hood had warrants out for his arrest, including one for a nonfatal shooting earlier that year. The police crime lab concluded that the bullet collected from the nonfatal shooting matched the bullets that killed Brown and Kirk, the opinion said.

Keeler and a detective sergeant arrested Hood on the outstanding warrants, and while he was in custody, he asked to speak with the detectives who arrested him and gave a detailed confession to the shootings of Brown and Kirk, the opinion said.

Hood told detectives that he argued with Kirk over the gold chain on the night of the shootings. She refused to return the chain to him and tried to get him to leave her apartment. Hood then shot her in the head, the opinion said.

Brown, who was also at the apartment, ran to her infant daughter's bedroom, according to the opinion, and Hood followed and shot her twice. He went back to Kirk and shot her again.

"When asked why he killed Brown, the defendant said she was a witness who needed to be eliminated," the opinion said.

A grand jury indicted Hood in November 1993 on two counts of first-degree murder, along with other charges related to past offenses.

In June 1995, Hood pled guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and other charges, and received two consecutive terms of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

Meanwhile, evidence emerged that Brazil and two other Boston Police Department detectives who investigated Mulligan's murder were involved in unrelated criminal conduct, the opinion said.

Ellis filed a motion for a new trial, saying the detectives' misconduct tainted Mulligan's death investigation. The court, however, denied the motion and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the denial.

After more new evidence showed Mulligan had also been involved in a corruption scheme with the detectives who investigated his death, Ellis filed another motion for a new trial in 2013. He also showed evidence that police failed to pursue leads into other possible suspects for Mulligan's slaying.

Ellis' motion showed detectives had a strong conflict of interest in investigating Mulligan's murder: They had an incentive to prevent a deeper investigation that would have revealed their own wrongdoing, the opinion said. The trial court granted Ellis' motion for a new trial, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed.

A 2022 statement from the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said Mulligan and four other officers participated in a "sprawling corruption scheme" that involved using false warrant applications to seize money from drug dealers and keep it for themselves.

Hood has for decades been filing motions to withdraw his guilty pleas and for a new trial. In July 2020, he filed a motion challenging his guilty pleas that led to this appeal.

Hood claimed that prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that could show someone else did it; that newly discovered evidence cast doubt on his guilt; that his defense counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge a pretrial protective order; and that his pleas were not voluntary.

He cited the evidence from the Mulligan investigation, which his plea counsel had been barred from sharing with him due to a protective order. He also cited evidence of the detectives' misconduct in Ellis' case.

Hood claimed his plea counsel told him he had "no chance at trial" because he confessed. He added that he did not know about the information in the Ellis case, and that he would not have pled guilty if he had known.

However, the lower court ruled against Hood, calling his claims that he would not have pled guilty if he had known about the police misconduct or Mulligan investigation issues "self-serving." The judge found that the information would not have materially affected Hood's decision to plead guilty.

The evidence that won Ellis a new trial, the judge said, was not connected to the investigation of the deaths of Kirk and Brown. Additionally, prosecutors had strong evidence against Hood, including a confession, ballistic evidence and evidence that placed him at the scene around the time of the shootings.

Hood appealed the denial.

On Monday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected Hood's contention that the tainted investigation into the shooting of Mulligan and the investigation into the killings of Brown and Kirk were strongly linked. The court said Hood failed to establish a nexus between the misconduct and his own case.

"That premise is too broad," Justice Georges wrote. "The investigations crossed in important respects, and those intersections gave plea counsel a basis to pursue discovery for purposes of a third-party culprit defense. But the nexus inquiry asks whether misconduct infected the investigation of this defendant, not whether some of the same detectives worked both files or the investigations shared witnesses and leads."

The high court also rejected Hood's argument that his confession was not voluntary, saying he did not allege coercive tactics or anything else that would have supported his claim.

After the opinion was issued, Hood's attorney, Jennifer O'Brien, told Law360 that the two murder cases were so intertwined that at least 16 civilian witnesses provided evidence about all three of the slayings.

"Many police reports referenced all three homicides, and a search warrant seeking evidence related to the Mulligan homicide was executed at the Hood crime scene — the residence shared by Ellis, Kirk, and Brown," she said in an email. "The Mulligan murder weapons were hidden at the Kirk and Brown crime scene. These were not simply overlapping investigations; one informed the other."

The high court, she said, denied justice to her client.

"It is a complete travesty that the SJC upheld this plea after the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office acknowledged six years of corruption, deceit, deception, felonies, perjury, and cover-ups — including misconduct connected to this very investigation," O'Brien added. "Justice required that Mr. Hood be granted a trial by jury. Unfortunately, he did not get one."

Representatives for the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office did not respond to requests for comment this week.

Hood is represented by Jennifer O'Brien.

The government is represented by Sarah Montgomery Lewis of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.

The case is Commonwealth v. Craig Hood, case number SJC-13818, in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

--Editing by Kelly Duncan.

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