Suffolk judge bars gun evidence in Dante Taylor murder trial

A Suffolk judge rejected a prosecutor’s request Wednesday to let her present evidence that the Mastic man charged with raping and killing a young Medford mother bought a shotgun hours after the slaying.

Before the first-degree murder trial of Dante Taylor, 20, began, state Supreme Court Justice John Collins ruled that prosecutors would not be permitted to mention the shotgun because it was irrelevant and needlessly inflammatory.

Taylor is accused of raping and stabbing Sarah Goode, 21, more than 40 times in the early hours of June 7, 2014.

On Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson asked Collins to reconsider his pretrial ruling. She wanted to show that Taylor purchased the gun just hours after Goode was killed because that showed “consciousness of guilt.”

Albertson speculated that Taylor was going to use the gun to kill himself or fire at police, who he assumed would soon come for him.

Before trial testimony resumed Wednesday, Collins said his original decision would stand and that he still saw no relevance of the shotgun purchase to the charges.

“I do not buy into the people’s position that he purchased the gun to commit suicide,” Collins said.

The judge warned defense attorney John Lewis Jr. of Farmingdale to avoid raising the issue himself.

Before the trial, Collins barred the prosecution from introducing statements and evidence gathered as a result of what he ruled was an illegal arrest of Taylor on June 10, 2014, before Goode’s body was even found.

However, Lewis has delved into some of the suppressed evidence anyway in an attempt to show jurors how unreasonably homicide detectives acted.

Collins reminded Lewis that one reason detectives arrested Taylor and seized his car that day was because they knew about the shotgun purchase. Collins told him if he’s not careful, he could open the door to testimony about the purchase later in the trial.