Com. v. Holliday
| Decision Date | 14 March 2008 |
| Docket Number | SJC-08063. |
| Citation | 450 Mass. 794,882 N.E.2d 309 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Craig HOLLIDAY (and nine companion cases<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
James W. Rosseel, Worcester, for Craig Holliday.
Stephen B. Hrones, Boston, for Jeffrey Mooltrey.
Amanda Lovell, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
David H. Mirsky, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for Committee for Public Counsel Services, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.
Present: MARSHALL, C.J., IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, & CORDY, JJ.
In the early morning hours of March 31, 1991, gang members Craig Holliday and Jeffrey Mooltrey went to an after-hours party in the Roxbury section of Boston. At the party, Nathaniel Rivers, the leader of a rival gang, and a bystander, Mia Sanders, were shot to death. On October 3, 1996, Mooltrey and Holliday were indicted. On May 22, 1998, a jury convicted them each on two indictments charging murder in the first degree, on theories of deliberate premeditation and felony-murder; two indictments charging armed home invasion; and one indictment charging each with possession of a firearm.2
On appeal from their convictions and the denials of their motions for a new trial, Mooltrey and Holliday raise a number of issues. Both challenge the issuance of a protective order that restricted their access to identifying information in the statements of witnesses, arguing that it deprived them of their constitutional rights to a fair trial, to assist in their defense, and to effective representation. They both also claim that their attorneys were ineffective in failing adequately to investigate or pursue third-party culprit defenses. Holliday separately contends that his attorney was ineffective in failing to object to a statement made during the judge's instructions to the jury, and in failing to move pursuant to the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution to suppress his confession. He further claims that evidentiary errors, including the admission of testimony of the victims' mothers, testimony from witnesses about their fears of retaliation, and evidence of motive, deprived him of a fair trial. Finally, both defendants seek relief under G.L. c. 278, § 33E, contending that the cumulative effect of errors at trial deprived them of due process, and that justice requires that they receive new trials. We affirm the judgments of conviction and the order denying the motions for a new trial.3 See note 1, supra.
1. Trial. We summarize the evidence presented at trial. Holliday and Mooltrey were members of a gang called the "Big Head Boys." Holliday was one of its leaders. The Big Head Boys were rivals of a neighboring gang, the "Intervale Street Posse." Holliday's older brother, Todd Holliday (Todd), was not a member of either gang. However, on March 23, 1991, Todd was shot and killed while walking with Aslaam Mooltrey (Aslaam), Mooltrey's brother. Aslaam reported to Mooltrey and Holliday that the Intervale gang was responsible for Todd's death.
Following his brother's murder, Holliday repeatedly told other members of his gang that he was "going to get the mother fuckers," in revenge for Todd's death. He told one friend to stay away from Intervale members because "crazy stuff" was about to happen. Less than seventy-two hours after Todd's burial, Rivers and Sanders were killed when gunfire broke out in the basement of a home on Fayston Street. The basement was the location of a periodic after-hours party that Intervale members, including Rivers, often attended. Approximately eighty people were at the party on the night of the shooting. Sanders attended with her boy friend.
Before they went to the party, Holliday, Mooltrey, and a third individual, Maurice Ramsey, met with Tyrone Dickerson, also a member of the Big Head Boys, at his sister's apartment. Holliday told Dickerson that Intervale members were going to be at the party, declared that he was going to get revenge for his brother, and pledged "an eye for an eye." Mooltrey echoed the same intentions. Holliday, Mooltrey, and Ramsey left the apartment armed with handguns. Holliday asked Dickerson to come with them, but he declined.
Witnesses at the party heard from four to six shots ring out and saw both Holliday and Mooltrey firing handguns. Some of the witnesses observed Holliday pull his gun out and fire. Others saw "sparks" coming from Mooltrey's arm. Rivers was shot in the back as he ran for the stairs. He died in a hospital later that morning. Sanders was caught in the cross-fire and died at the scene.
The police found several shell casings and one spent bullet in the basement, and subsequently recovered part of one of the bullets that struck and killed Rivers. From this evidence, they were able to establish that three different types of handguns were used. When they arrived at the scene, they also encountered James Whiteside, who had been shot outside the home.
After the shootings, Holliday, Mooltrey, and Ramsey returned to Dickerson's apartment and boasted about shooting Rivers. The boasts were later repeated to others. Holliday also said that he was going to "get them all," apparently referring to other members of the Intervale gang.
Six weeks after the murders of Rivers and Sanders, Steven Niles, another member of the Big Head Boys, accompanied by Holliday and Mooltrey, shot two additional Intervale gang members. After the shooting, the three retreated to Dickerson's apartment building, where the police soon arrived. Niles, Mooltrey, and Dickerson were found hiding in the building's basement, and Holliday was discovered in a neighboring apartment. The police also found guns in the basement, one of which fired the bullet that killed Rivers.4
The police investigation into the murders of Sanders and Rivers thereafter faltered due to the reluctance of witnesses to provide information against gang members. Years later, members of the Boston police cold case squad interviewed Holliday, who was then incarcerated on other offenses. After advising him of his Miranda rights, the officers showed him a binder of investigative material they had accrued in their investigation against him, explained that they had a complaint and warrant for his arrest for the murders, and informed him that they knew what happened at the party. Holliday agreed to speak to the police and gave them a statement admitting that he was at the party and had fired his gun, but claiming that he fired because he was afraid of Rivers, who smiled mockingly at him and then reached for something that Holliday thought might be a weapon.5 He also told police that, although Mooltrey had come to the party with him, Mooltrey did not fire any of the shots.
The officers also met with Mooltrey and advised him of his rights. After the officers told Mooltrey that they had already spoken with Holliday, Mooltrey gave them a statement, claiming that he had gone to the party with friends, and that those friends, not he, had done the shooting. He refused to identify any of those friends.
The defense theories at trial were largely consistent with the statements the defendants had made to the police — that Holliday acted in self-defense, and that Mooltrey had been present only and did not participate in the shootings. Both counsel vigorously cross-examined the witnesses called by the Commonwealth, many of whom either had given inconsistent (and noninculpatory) statements shortly after the shootings or had only recently come forward. The Commonwealth countered this examination by eliciting testimony regarding the fearful circumstances that had confronted the witnesses who lived in the area dominated by the two gangs.
Counsel for Holliday called two defense witnesses, a ballistics expert and a psychologist. The ballistics witness questioned police handling and testing of the gun and other ballistics evidence recovered during the investigation. The psychologist testified as to the tests he had administered on Holliday, his conclusion that Holliday was of borderline intelligence, and his opinion that Holliday possessed a diminished ability accurately to perceive or react logically and reflectively to what was actually happening in any given situation. Neither defendant testified.
The judge gave extensive instructions to the jury, including instructions regarding the three theories of murder in the first degree pressed by the Commonwealth (premeditation, extreme atrocity or cruelty, and felony-murder), joint venture liability, diminished capacity, and self-defense.
2. New trial motions. In April, 2003, the defendants filed motions for a new trial and requested an evidentiary hearing. They contended that a pretrial protective order entered at the Commonwealth's request had improperly impeded their preparation for trial. They also argued that their attorneys were ineffective because they failed to present third-party culprit defenses. The motion judge, who was also the trial judge, held an evidentiary hearing that extended over five days in 2004 and 2005.6 a. The protective order. On October 28, 1996, shortly after the indictments were returned, the Commonwealth filed a motion for a discovery protective order. In it, the Commonwealth asked the court to enter an order restricting the defendants' access to identifying information contained in the statements of civilian witnesses, either by permitting the redaction of such information from the statements, by providing the statements to defense counsel on the condition that they not be made available to the defendants, or by providing defense counsel with access to witnesses rather than their addresses. In its supporting memorandum and at a hearing, on October 28 and November 6, the Commonwealth explained that the fear of retaliation in this gang-related double homicide was so great that no witness with information about the murders was willing to speak to the police initially; that only after the...
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