The Supreme Judicial Court today gave Suffolk County prosecutors a choice: They can retry Mario Gonzalez of Dorchester for stabbing his girlfriend to death in 2009 or they can accept reducing his current conviction from first to second-degree murder.
A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole. A second-degree conviction also carries a life sentence but with the possibility of parole, as early as 15 years after conviction.
At issue is the legal theory under which prosecutors charged Gonzalez with first-degree murder and the judge's instructions to his jury.