Benjamin LaGuer (May 1, 1963 – November 4, 2020) was an American convicted criminal serving a life sentence in Massachusetts for rape. He did not acknowledge the crime for which he was convicted, claiming innocence. His case achieved prominence in the late 1980s when reporting by John King discovered a juror who said that other members of the all-white-male jury uttered racist slurs before and during deliberations. His case became a flashpoint in the 2006 race for Massachusetts Governor when it was revealed that Deval Patrick, the Democratic candidate, had corresponded with and supported the inmate over a period of several years. He died in a Massachusetts prison hospital of liver disease aged 57. Early life LaGuer was born in The Bronx, New York and grew up in New York and Puerto Rico until age 15 when he moved to Leominster, Massachusetts to live with a half sister who was his father's daughter from a previous marriage. He attended high school in Leominster before dropping out in late 1980 to join the Army where he served in a support capacity in Germany. With a discharge from the Army, he returned to Leominster in June 1983. On the morning of July 13, 1983 police were summoned to his neighbor's apartment where they discovered a 59-year-old woman bound and beaten. It was quickly determined to be a rape case. Two days later, on July 15, 1983, LaGuer was charged with the crime. He proclaimed his innocence but was convicted in Worcester Superior Court the following January and given a life sentence with eligibility for parole after 15 years. Challenges to the conviction Soon after starting his prison term LaGuer began studying in the law library and learned how to access the legal system on his own behalf and for other inmates. In 1991, a challenge LaGuer launched to his conviction two years earlier went all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court which rendered a landmark ruling in LaGuer's favor. At issue was whether an affidavit given by juror William Nowick that other members of the all-white-male panel made racist comments before and during deliberations constituted a violation of LaGuer's right to a fair trial. Even though the state's high court sided with LaGuer as a matter of law, it did not overturn the verdict, instead sending it back to the trial judge, Robert Mulkern, for a finding of fact. After