Judge clear's way for Boston slayings retrial

BOSTON (AP) -- A judge has cleared the way for the retrial of a man accused of killing three adults and a toddler during a drug-related robbery in Boston in 2010.

The judge Thursday refused to grant a defense attorney's motion to compel the disclosure of who leaked "confidential" communications to a newspaper columnist from sidebar interviews with two jurors on March 22, just before Dwayne Moore's first trial ended with a deadlocked jury.

The Boston Herald reports Moore's attorney argued that prosecutors needed to spin a "public relations disaster" by planting a story that the hung jury was stymied by one holdout.

Moore's lawyer had said the leaked conversations could serve as the basis for dismissal.

Moore's codefendant, Edward Washington, was acquitted of the September 2010 slayings in the city's Mattapan section.