Theodore Kessis, John Jay College of Criminal Justice Associate Provost Lawrence Kobilinsky and Harvard University geneticist Daniel Hartl, questioned the DNA test, and called for an investigation into its validity. LaGuer continued to maintain his innocence and attracted the pro bono services of another high powered international law firm, Goodwin Procter, where James C. Rehnquist, a partner at the firm and son of then U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, took over LaGuer's case. In February 2004, Rehnquist filed a motion for a new trial in Worcester, Massachusetts Superior Court seeking a new trial on the basis of a Massachusetts State Police report generated the day LaGuer was arrested showing that four fingerprints found on the base of the trimline telephone, the cord of which was used to bind the victim's wrists, did not match the defendant's. This revelation prompted concern from several lawmakers, including State Senator Jarrett Barrios, who made a written inquiry to the State Police crime lab. Rehnquist's position that the suppression of potentially exculpatory evidence (revealed in November 2001, almost 18 years after the trial) constituted a violation of LaGuer's right to a fair trial, was rejected by Worcester Superior Court Judge Timothy Hillman. Rehnquist appealed the decision where he was again denied. In June 2006, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed to hear the case. On March 23, 2007, the Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld LaGuer's conviction. Political use of the LaGuer case in the Massachusetts Governor's race In 2006, the LaGuer case became a dominant issue in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race between Republican Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey and Democrat Deval Patrick. It was revealed that Patrick had petitioned the parole board in 1998 and 2000 for LaGuer's freedom and had contributed financially to the DNA testing. In his letters to the parole board Patrick characterized LaGuer as "thoughtful and eloquent." He was criticized in two widely used television ads, considered by some analysts to be among the most negative in the 2006 campaign season. In one ad featuring a woman walking alone in a parking garage, the narrator asks, "have you ever heard a woman compliment a rapist?" The ad was widely perceived as backfiring on Healey because of its negative tone. Patrick ultimately won the race by a margin of more than 20 percentage points. Developments since 2006 The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard LaGuer's appeal on January 4, 2007, and a