SJC to hear appeal of two convicted in Chinatown massacre

Siny Van Tran and Nam The Tham are asking the state’s highest court to overturn their convictions and grant them new trials. Their appeal will be argued before the Supreme Judicial Court next month.

The killings on Jan. 12, 1991, stunned Boston, particularly residents of the city’s close-knit Chinatown neighborhood, where the men were shot while playing cards.

Prosecutors said three gunmen entered the club before dawn, announced a robbery, and ordered the patrons to put their hands behind their heads. Six men were shot in the head at such close range that gunpowder residue was found on their clothing. One of the six survived and became the prosecution’s star witness.

It took years to find Tran and Tham, who grew up in China and returned there after the killings. They were brought back to Boston in 2001 after being arrested in China on unrelated charges. A third suspect, Hung Tien Pham, has not been found.

Lawyers for Tran and Tham say they were convicted on little evidence, mainly through the testimony of two witnesses who gave conflicting descriptions and accounts of the shootings.

Tham’s lawyer argues in his appeal that the trial prosecutor pressured the jury to convict the men by referring to the crime as one of the worst in Boston’s history and telling jurors they would write the final chapter of a story that then spanned nearly 15 years.

“The prosecutor’s theme improperly conveyed a false picture of personal obligation to bring closure after 15 years of government effort, driven by harm of historical significance to the Boston community,’’ Tham’s appellate attorney, Robert F. Shaw Jr., argues in his appeal.

Tran and Tham say prosecutors should not have been allowed to show the jury airline records indicating that Tran, Tham, and the third suspect flew together to China about three weeks after the killings.

The trial judge had rejected the records, but a single justice of the state Supreme Judicial Court reversed the ruling right before lawyers were scheduled to make closing arguments.