BOSTON (AP) – A judge could decide next month whether to order a new trial for Alexander Pring-Wilson, the Harvard graduate student who was convicted last fall of killing a teenage cook during a street fight in Cambridge.

This week, Superior Court Judge Regina Quinlan scheduled an April 12 hearing to determine whether Pring-Wilson’s murder conviction should be thrown out in the wake of a recent ruling by the state Supreme Judicial Court, The Boston Globe reported Wednesday.

The SJC ruled that juries can consider a victim’s violent history if the evidence suggests that a homicide or assault was started by the victim, not the defendant.

During Pring-Wilson’s trial, his attorneys tried to argue that their client was defending himself when he stabbed Michael Colono to death. They also wanted to introduce evidence that Colono and his cousin had a history of violence

But Quinlan blocked jurors from hearing that evidence because, under state law, it is only admissible if a defendant knew about a victim’s violent past. Pring-Wilson didn’t know Colono or his cousin.

In her ruling this week, Quinlan said the “integrity of the evidence has been rendered suspect” by the SJC decision.