Com. v. Shelley

• Decision Date: 21 August 1980
• Citation: 409 N.E.2d 732,381 Mass. 340
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Robert J. SHELLEY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 732

409 N.E.2d 732

381 Mass. 340

COMMONWEALTH v. Robert J. SHELLEY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

Argued May 7, 1980.

Decided Aug. 21, 1980.

Stephen A. Saltzburg, Charlottesville, Va. (Harvey E. Bines, Boston, with him), for defendant.

Charles J. Hely, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Before HENNESSEY, C. J., and KAPLAN, WILKINS, and LIACOS, JJ. LIACOS, Justice.

Indicted on October 3, 1975, for the murder of William C. Dubbels, the defendant Shelley was convicted on July 23, 1976, of murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. On February 23, 1978, this court reversed the conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. Commonwealth v. Shelley, 374 Mass. 466, 373 N.E.2d 951 (1978). The second trial, which commenced on November 29, 1978, resulted again in conviction for murder in the first degree and a sentence of life imprisonment pursuant to G.L. c. 265, § 2. Shelley appeals to this court pursuant to G.L. c. 278, §§ 33A-33G. We affirm.

The evidence put before the jury indicates that the murder occurred on September 3, 1975. Dubbels managed a Needham grocery store where Shelley worked. On September 2, about 11:30 P.M., Shelley and three others left the store to visit Dubbels at home in Franklin. When he arrived in Franklin, Shelley had had between one and nine beers. At no time during the evening did Shelley appear intoxicated. When Dubbels answered his doorbell, he was dressed in a bathrobe. He reached out, grabbed Shelley and pulled him into the house. The group talked and drank together until about 2 A.M. During the evening, Dubbels expressed interest in having sexual relations with Shelley, but Shelley laughed it off. Dubbels asked Shelley to stay the night and offered him a ride to work the next morning. Shelley agreed, but asked if one of the others could also stay. Dubbels said no, and the others left.

What next transpired we learn primarily from statements Shelley gave to the police and various expert witnesses. The statements are not wholly consistent, but generally, for our purposes, the differences are not material. It appears that Shelley went upstairs and took a shower. When Shelley emerged from the shower, Dubbels invited Shelley to sleep in his room. Shelley put his pants on. Dubbels told Shelley to take them off, but Shelley did not. They lay together on the bed with the lights out. When Shelley was half-asleep or half-passed-out, Dubbels made a sexual advance toward him. Shelley pushed Dubbels away, got up, put his boots on, and went downstairs "to get a drink." He may have had a drink at that point. He debated whether to leave or go back upstairs. He located a meat cleaver and a "hot dog" fork in a kitchen drawer; he went upstairs, and put out the bathroom light so Dubbels would not see the light gleam on the cleaver. Shelley sat down on the bed. Dubbels put his arm around him, and Shelley began striking Dubbels with the cleaver. As Shelley gripped Dubbels in a headlock and hacked at him, Dubbels cried out, "What are you doing?" Shelley said, "I'm killing you," or, "I think I'm killing you." Dubbels said, "You can't do that." But the assault went on. As Dubbels tried to resist, Shelley put him in a chokehold, and Dubbels fell backward, landing on Shelley. Shelley got out from under, turned the light on, and apparently went at Dubbels again, first with the cleaver and next with the fork. He left the bent fork stuck in the side of Dubbels' head. Dubbels was still breathing. Then Shelley jumped on Dubbels' head repeatedly. At some point during the incident, Shelley claimed he began to feel that he was not the one doing the killing.

Shelley telephoned certain friends and the police. He also rummaged through Dubbels' possessions, looking for money. The police arrived, surveyed the scene, arrested Shelley, gave him Miranda warnings, and took his statement. He gave a longer statement at the police station. An autopsy revealed that Dubbels had died from loss of blood from multiple incised stab wounds.

At Shelley's second trial, there was no dispute that he had killed Dubbels. The only question was whether he was criminally responsible. The Commonwealth's psychiatrist, Dr. John Kluznik, testified that Shelley was criminally responsible within the meaning of the test set out in Commonwealth v. McHoul, 352 Mass. 544, 226 N.E.2d 556 (1967). According to this witness, Shelley belonged to the diagnostic category of "borderline personality . . . disorder," a condition in which a person may be capable of appreciating the wrongfulness of his conduct. Shelley had not had psychiatric treatment prior to the killing.

During the attack on Dubbels, Shelley allegedly experienced a "dissociative reaction"; i. e., he felt as if he were not the one striking Dubbels. Dr. Kluznik characterized this claimed reaction as a "mental disease or defect" for purposes of the McHoul test. Questioning focused on the timing and the cause of the reaction. Dr. Kluznik fixed the onset of the dissociative state midway through the attack, either when blood first hit Shelley in the face or when Shelley stopped the attack, turned on the light, and began again. The doctor maintained that at least three aspects of Shelley's thought process and behavior before the attack began were inconsistent with a diagnosis of dissociative state: (1) his decision to leave the bed and go downstairs after the first sexual advances by Dubbels; (2) once downstairs, the thoughts, "Leave? Get him back? I was not sure;" and (3) putting out the bathroom light so Dubbels would not see the weapons. The doctor described Shelley's actions as having "the methodical not irrational, not driven quality of someone who is insane but more a quality of hatred and vengeance."

Dr. Kluznik testified that dissociative reaction is usually associated with extreme fright, panic, or anxiety, and that one need not be psychotic to enter a dissociative state. The doctor admitted the possibility that Shelley suffered from "homosexual panic" resulting from Dubbels' advances, but he pointed out that other rage or panic states could generate the reaction. According to Dr. Kluznik, Shelley hated homosexuals, felt rage toward them, and wished to do them violence. Shelley's borderline personality would be the basic cause of the dissociative state. Consumption of alcohol, Dr. Kluznik testified, was an indirect cause of Shelley's reaction. "(A)lcohol provides a loosening of inhibitions, the inhibitions that control rage and the inhibitions that control aggressive attack. Once those mechanisms are set into motion, a person can become frightened and dissociative reaction can result." In response to a question by the judge, the doctor agreed that "the defendant had a latent condition of one sort or another which was exacerbated by the excessive use of alcohol."

On cross-examination, defense counsel questioned Dr. Kluznik about a progress note the doctor had written on July 14, 1976. The note stated that Shelley had had a dissociative reaction during the time of the killing and the reaction would have rendered him not criminally responsible. The note goes on to say, "It should be pointed out, however, that the dissociative reaction would probably not have occurred had he not been drinking that night. In my understanding, the voluntary consumption of alcohol precludes the right to the use of the insanity defense and it is on the basis of that understanding that I reach the opinion that Mr. Shelley should be considered criminally responsible at the time of the incident offense." On further cross-examination, the doctor said that he had modified his opinion since the time he wrote the note. He remarked that the dissociative state had occurred during some part of the time of the offense and that the offense occurred over a significant period of time.

The defense presented three expert witnesses, two of whom expressed no opinion about Shelley's criminal responsibility at the time of the crime. Dr. Stephen G. Cronin, a psychiatrist, testified that he had examined Shelley on August 17, 1977, at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Bridgewater and that, in response to the doctor's staged remark, "Gee, what would you think if I kind of thought you were cute?" Shelley became psychotic. In a later examination, Dr. Cronin concluded that Shelley suffered "paranoid illusions" focusing on homosexuality. Dr. Jonathan H. Slavin, a clinical psychologist, testified that he administered various diagnostic tests to Shelley. Dr. Slavin concluded that Shelley had a paranoid personality, that he was hyperattentive to details, that he tended to lose his tenuous self-control when his masculinity was threatened, and that he was of bright normal intelligence.

Finally, Dr. Laurence C. Salvesen, a psychiatrist, testified that Shelley suffered from a borderline paranoid personality or latent schizophrenia. This expert testified that Shelley tended to view people as all good or all bad, and feared and denied his own homosexual feelings and viewed homosexuals as subhuman. Dr. Salvesen said that from the moment of the Dubbels' sexual advance, Shelley entered a psychotic dissociative state and had a "primitive" asocial reaction: a feeling that he had to fight or flee. In Dr. Salvesen's opinion, Shelley was in the grips of homosexual panic, and lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. Shelley's pride at the killing and his activities after the incident were viewed by the witness as consistent with this opinion. Finally, Dr. Salvesen concluded that Shelley was not intoxicated during the incident. According to the doctor, if Shelley had been intoxicated, the alcohol could have facilitated a dissociative reaction without necessarily causing it.

Shelley attacks his conviction on four grounds: first, he argues that, as a matter of law, he is not guilty by reason of insanity; second, he contends that the judge...