Com. v. Pring-Wilson

• Decision Date: 10 April 2007
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Alexander PRING-WILSON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

863 N.E.2d 936

448 Mass. 718

COMMONWEALTH v. Alexander PRING-WILSON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Argued January 2, 2007.

Decided April 10, 2007.

Marguerite T. Grant, Assistant District Attorney (Adrienne C. Lynch, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the Commonwealth.

Charles W. Rankin, Boston (Jonathan Harwell with him) for the defendant.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, & CORDY, JJ.

MARSHALL, C.J.

In the early morning of April 12, 2003, the defendant, Alexander Pring-Wilson, became entangled in a fight with Michael Colono and Samuel Rodriguez outside a pizza restaurant in Cambridge. During the brawl, the defendant stabbed Colono, who later died. The defendant was indicted and tried on a charge of murder in the first degree.

The central issue at trial was whether the defendant acted in self-defense. To support his theory that Colono or Rodriguez started the fight, the defendant sought to introduce evidence of each man's prior violent behavior. At the time of trial, the law of self-defense in Massachusetts permitted a defendant knowledgeable about the victim's violent character to introduce evidence of the victim's specific violent acts or reputation for violence to demonstrate the defendant's reasonable apprehension for his or her safety. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Fontes, 396 Mass. 733, 735-736, 488 N.E.2d 760 (1986); Commonwealth v. Edmonds, 365 Mass. 496, 501-502, 313 N.E.2d 429 (1974). But the law did not permit a defendant unaware of the victim's violent propensity to introduce evidence of that propensity to show who was the first aggressor. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Graham, 431 Mass. 282, 291, 727 N.E.2d 51 (2000), and cases cited. Here, the defendant knew nothing of the violent histories of Colono or Rodriguez, who were strangers to him, and the trial judge disallowed the defendant's repeated attempts to introduce evidence of Colono or Rodriguez's violent pasts to demonstrate that either had a violent character.

The jury convicted the defendant of voluntary manslaughter.¹ The defendant filed a timely notice of appeal.

While the record was being assembled for appeal, we decided Commonwealth v Adjutant, 443 Mass. 649, 824 N.E.2d 1 (2005) (Adjutant). There we held that "where the identity of the first aggressor is in dispute and the victim has a history of violence," the judge has the discretion to admit "evidence of specific acts of prior violent conduct that the victim is reasonably alleged to have initiated, to support the defendant's claim of self-defense." Id. at 664, 824 N.E.2d 1. Declaring that the decision marked a "new common-law rule of evidence," we stated that the rule "shall apply only prospectively." Id. at 667, 824 N.E.2d 1. But contrary to our regular practice when establishing a new rule not constitutionally mandated, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Dwyer, 448 Mass. 122, 124, 147, 859 N.E.2d 400 (2006); Commonwealth v. King, 445 Mass. 217, 248, 834 N.E.2d 1175 (2005); Commonwealth v. Dagley, 442 Mass. 713, 720-722 & n. 10, 816 N.E.2d 527 (2004), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 930, 125 S.Ct. 1668, 161 L.Ed.2d 494 (2005), we afforded the defendant in Adjutant the benefit of the new rule, for reasons we explain below.

Within days of our deciding Adjutant, the judge here (who coincidentally had also been the trial judge in Adjutant) scheduled a hearing "to determine whether the conviction of the defendant should be vacated and a new trial ordered on the grounds that, although the court views the evidence as legally sufficient to support the verdict returned by the jury, the integrity of the evidence has been rendered suspect as a result of the decision of the Supreme Judicial Court in [Adjutant]." She also solicited legal memoranda from the parties. The defendant moved for a new trial, citing Mass. R.Crim. P. 25(b)(2), 378 Mass. 896 (1979), which the Commonwealth opposed.

After a hearing, the judge issued a thoughtful memorandum of decision and order, allowing the defendant's motion, vacating his conviction, and ordering a new trial. She concluded, in the exercise of her broad discretion under rule 25(b)(2), that the integrity of the defendant's trial was compromised by his inability to introduce evidence of the violent pasts of Colono and Rodriguez. She further concluded that, like the defendant in Adjutant, this defendant was entitled to a new trial because the propensity evidence he had sought to introduce was probative of the main issue in the case: the identity of the first aggressor. Having moved unsuccessfully for reconsideration, the Commonwealth appealed. We granted the Commonwealth's application for direct appellate review. We now affirm the judge's order granting the defendant a new trial.

1. Background. A consideration of the facts in evidence, as well as the facts excluded by the judge, is necessary for resolution of the central issue in this appeal. We therefore describe them in some detail, beginning with the evidence before the jury.

a. The evidence at trial. i. Events preceding the fight. During the evening of April 11, 2003, Rodriguez was visiting his mother's apartment in Lynn with his girl friend, Giselle Abreu. The two planned to join Colono (Rodriguez's cousin) and go to a bar in Somerville. Before leaving Lynn for the evening, Rodriguez and Abreu had an argument. At trial, each claimed the argument was only oral, but a percipient witness, Shawn Bates, testified that he saw Rodriguez beat Abreu. Bates telephoned the police, and the responding officers briefly questioned Rodriguez and Abreu. The incident unnerved Rodriguez and delayed the couple's outing—midnight came and went before they left to pick up Colono.

They drove Rodriguez's mother's automobile, a Chevrolet four-door sedan, taking with them a six pack of beer and one half-pint bottle of brandy that Rodriguez had purchased for Colono; Rodriguez was twenty-one years of age at the time, and Colono was eighteen years of age. Earlier in the evening, Rodriguez had consumed some beer and whiskey. On their way to Colono's apartment in Cambridge, Rodriguez drove, but after collecting Colono, Rodriguez switched seats with Abreu. Rodriguez did not have a driver's license, and although Abreu also had no license, Rodriguez thought that it would be less likely that the police would stop the automobile if a woman was driving. Rodriguez sat in the front passenger seat with Abreu while Colono sat in the back seat.

The three decided to go to the Pizza Ring restaurant on Western Avenue. Abreu stopped in front of the restaurant. Rodriguez went inside and placed an order, then returned to the automobile, and the three waited until the pizza was ready. As they waited, Colono drank a couple of beers.

While the preceding events were unfolding, the following events were simultaneously transpiring. At about 9:30 P.M. on April 11, the defendant met a friend, Jennifer Hansen, and her friend at a diner in Davis Square. While there, the defendant drank a couple of whiskeys with soda. After about forty-five minutes, the three went to a nearby pub. There, the defendant drank two sodas to which he added whiskey from a half-pint flask he had purchased on the way to the pub. At approximately 11:40 P.M., the three made their way to the Western Front, a bar and club near Central Square. The three drank the rest of the defendant's whiskey and danced, staying until the club closed at 1:30 A.M.

Hansen and her friend took a cab home, while the defendant began walking to his home, along Western Avenue. His route took him toward the Pizza Ring where Colono, Rodriguez, and Abreu were waiting in the automobile for their pizza. As he approached the Pizza Ring, the defendant was talking on his cellular telephone to his girl friend, Janice Olmstead. Shortly thereafter, the fight occurred between the defendant on the one hand, and Colono and Rodriguez on the other.

ii. The fight. From the perspective of Rodriguez and Abreu, the fight happened as follows. As the defendant approached their automobile, he was talking on his cellular telephone and appeared to be intoxicated and stumbling. Colono said, "Look at this dude walking down the street," and everyone in the automobile began laughing. Colono's window was open, and as the defendant passed, Colono either said that the defendant was "shitfaced" (Abreu's version) or told the defendant, "Get off the street" or "Get off the street, shitface" (Rodriguez's versions). Shortly after the defendant passed the automobile, he ended his telephone conversation, turned around, and came back to Colono's window. Rodriguez said to his cohorts that the defendant had "a lot of nerve" coming back to the automobile. The defendant leaned down, looked in the window, and asked Colono either, "Were you talking to me?" (Rodriguez's version), or "Excuse me. Did you say something?" (Abreu's version).² Colono answered, "Yes. Do you want to do something about it?," to which the defendant responded, "Yes," and opened Colono's door.³ Colono got out of the automobile "as fast as he could" and started "swinging." Abreu said she saw "[p]unches everywhere," but did not see who threw the first punch.

According to Rodriguez, as the defendant and Colono wrestled, the defendant pushed Colono against a nearby brick wall and put Colono in a headlock—the defendant, standing over Colono, held Colono's head against the defendant's chest while Colono tried unsuccessfully to punch his way free. Abreu testified that the defendant appeared to be hitting Colono in the stomach and upper body and was "getting the best of" Colono. Rodriguez got out of the automobile to help Colono but was slightly delayed because the door was broken: he had to open his window and then open his door using the outside handle. When Rodriguez went to Colono's aid, he punched the defendant in the head and pulled the defendant to the ground. The defendant, Colono, and Rodriguez were of approximately the same height...