A Suffolk Superior Court has overturned the 1995 murder-one conviction of Sean K. Ellis, age 40, for the 1993 murder of Boston Detective John J. Mulligan, paving the way for a new trial. In a 70-page ruling, Justice Carol Ball affirmed nearly all grounds brought forth by attorney Rosemary Scapicchio in her March 2013 motion for new trial, after hearing seven days of testimony.

Scapicchio argued that exculpatory information was withheld from Ellis's trial lawyers, including a detailed tip from a Boston officer that another officer was behind Mulligan's killing, and scores of credible tips from the police telephone hotline that were never investigated.

Scapicchio also presented evidence that victim John Mulligan was an accomplice in two robberies perpetrated by his friends and fellow detectives, Kenneth Acerra and Walter Robinson, who were convicted of a string of such crimes in 1998 and stripped of their badges. That Acerra and Robinson were partners in crime with the victim -- and investigators of his murder -- presented a conflict of interest, Scapicchio said.

Judge Ball agreed with Scapicchio that, had jurors known all this information, their verdict might have been different. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has 30 days in which to appeal the decision. Should they pursue charges against Ellis, it would be his fourth trial. His September 1995 conviction was won only at his third trial, after two previous trials ended in mistrial due to hung juries.

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