Commonwealth v. Guy, SJC-08711 (Mass. 12/5/2003)

• Decision Date: 05 December 2003
• Docket Number: SJC-08711
• Citation: Commonwealth v. Guy, SJC-08711 (Mass. 12/5/2003), 441 Mass. 96, 803 N.E.2d 707 (Mass. 2003)
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH vs. MARTIN G. GUY.
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

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COMMONWEALTH vs. MARTIN G. GUY.

SJC-08711

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

December 5, 2003.

February 25, 2004.

Present: Marshall, C.J., Greaney, Ireland, Cowin, & Cordy, JJ.

Homicide. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Admissions and confessions, Instructions to jury, Argument by prosecutor, Comment by prosecutor. Malice. Constitutional Law, Admissions and confessions. Evidence, Prior inconsistent statement, Impeachment of credibility.

Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on October 26, 1999.

The case was tried before Thomas E. Connolly, J.

The case was submitted on briefs.

Russell J. Redgate for the defendant.

William R. Keating, District Attorney, & James A. Reidy, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

IRELAND, J.

A Superior Court jury convicted the defendant, Martin G. Guy, of murder in the first degree based on theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. Represented by new counsel, the defendant appeals from his conviction, asserting several errors: (1) the judge erred in denying his motions for a required finding of not guilty; (2) his post-Miranda silence was used against him at trial; (3) the judge erred in instructing the jury on malice; (4) the written instructions that the judge gave the jury were incomplete and prejudicial; and (5) the prosecutor's closing argument was improper. We find no merit to the defendant's claims of error. Additionally, because there is no substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice, there is no basis to exercise our power under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to order a new trial or reduce the verdict.

Facts. Based on the Commonwealth's evidence, the jury could have found the following facts. At approximately 2 A.M. on September 20, 1999, Anthony Ferrara was leaving his residence at the Norwood Inn, a rooming house, with his girl friend, Luciana Souza. When they reached the first-floor foyer, they heard loud male voices. Immediately after Ferrara and Souza went through the inn's main entrance, the victim, Christopher Payne, stumbled out the main door. The victim was moving quickly, but stumbling as if he were intoxicated. The victim stumbled into Ferrara, who grabbed onto the victim instinctively, trying to steady him by placing his right hand on the victim's chest, which was wet, and wrapping his left hand around the victim's body. The victim moved past Ferrara and Souza and staggered down the side of Ferrara's vehicle, leaning his weight on the car. When the victim reached the rear of Ferrara's car, he fell on his face. During the fall, the victim's hands and arms remained at his side, failing to break the fall. After the fall, the victim was still breathing.

Immediately before the victim fell, the defendant emerged from the main door, armed with a machete-like knife. The defendant yelled, "Come back here, you son of a bitch." He walked over to the fallen, motionless victim, knelt down on one knee, raised the knife over his shoulder with both hands, and stabbed the victim in the back three times. The defendant got up and walked to the rear of the building. He later drove away from the scene in his red Ford Probe automobile.

Ferrara attempted to stop the victim's bleeding by using paper towels he retrieved from a nearby post office. Emergency medical personnel soon arrived, responding to the 911 call of Paul LaFleur, who observed the events outside from the window of his third-floor apartment at the rooming house. The paramedics continued to work on the victim until the advanced life support team arrived and transported him to a hospital, where he later died. An autopsy revealed that the victim had been stabbed eight times, and that he died from massive blood loss as a result of a three and one-quarter inch stab wound to his heart.

After leaving the Norwood Inn, the defendant drove to the nearby Norwood police station. He entered the station, held up his blood-covered hands, and stated that he had been stabbed. Lieutenant Richard Wall, the shift commander, took the defendant to an adjacent bathroom, asked him to wash the blood from his hands, and assessed the extent of the defendant's injuries, which were a cut on his left index finger, and a scratch on the right side of his neck.¹ He asked the defendant what happened. The defendant told him that, in self-defense, he had just stabbed someone at the Norwood Inn.

Wall asked the defendant where the knife was, and the defendant said that it was in his car. The knife, with a piece of the handle missing, was later located in the car. Subsequent deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing determined that the blood on the knife matched the victim's DNA profile. Blood on the knife handle contained a mixture of DNA that matched the profiles of the victim and the defendant.

After the police learned that the victim had been stabbed and seriously injured, the defendant was arrested on the charge of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. When the victim died, the defendant was charged with murder.

The defendant was transported to Norwood Hospital, where he remained in police custody. There, he spoke with Nurse Rita Hinthorne; Brian Gates and Chris King, security guards; and Officer Thomas Annino. The defendant told Hinthorne that he was unsure how his finger was cut, but that it happened during an altercation.² After King asked him how he was doing, the defendant told King that the victim had harassed him for a few weeks, and that, earlier that morning, the victim had knocked repeatedly on his door, and, when the defendant opened the door, the victim barged into the apartment, cornering him.

Officer Annino was guarding the doorway to the treatment room when the defendant spoke. Annino, who did not hear the defendant, replied, "What?" The defendant stated, "It never should have happened." The officer responded, "What?" The defendant explained that the victim knocked on the door to his apartment and, when the defendant opened it, the victim "came at [the defendant], swinging." The defendant stated that he was cornered, backed up against a wall, and that he acted in self-defense. The defendant also told Annino that the victim had been harassing him for years and that he had spoken to the manager of the rooming house about it, but the manager "laughed in [his] face."

Norwood police officers had been dispatched to the crime scene. Sergeant James Keady observed a heavy amount of blood in the parking lot. He followed a trail of blood from the parking lot into the rooming house, where he observed "a heavy concentration of blood" on the walls of the foyer and the first-floor hallway. The blood spatter analysis indicated that a series of blows had been inflicted on a person in the hallway, some delivered with significant force. DNA testing later determined that most of the blood was the victim's.

The hallway led to the defendant's apartment, a small (approximately eight feet by eight feet) room, "packed with items." Inside the apartment, the police observed nothing to indicate a disturbance. On the bed, the police found the opened box for the knife used by the defendant. The sheath to the knife and a broken piece of the knife handle lay next to the box. The police also observed that the top drawer of the defendant's bureau was open. In that drawer, they found six knife boxes, four of which contained knives in their sheaths.

The defendant testified at trial. He stated that at approximately 2 A.M. on September 20, 1999, he was awakened from his sleep by four knocks on the door. After he unlocked the door, the door was pushed in and someone hit him in the chest. The blow knocked the wind out of the defendant, and he stumbled back. The defendant testified that he then was struck on the side of his head by the handle of a knife.

The defendant further testified that he blocked the knife blow with his hand, had the knife held to his neck, and was threatened with death many times. The defendant grabbed his attacker's hand and pushed him back against the door. The struggle moved into the hallway. At some point, the defendant recognized his attacker as another resident of the rooming house.³ The defendant said that the intruder smelled of alcohol.

The defendant testified that, eventually, he gained control of the knife and swung it at the victim as hard as he could, making contact. The defendant then lost control of the knife and struggled to regain it. At one point, the victim had his hands around the defendant's throat. Just before the victim went outside, he told the defendant, "I'm going to fucking shoot you." The defendant followed the victim outside the door, struck him in the head with the knife, and stabbed him in the back.⁴

Discussion.

1. Denial of motions for required finding of not guilty. At the close of the Commonwealth's evidence and at the conclusion of the evidence, the defendant moved for a required finding of not guilty, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support a charge of murder in the first degree. The judge denied both motions. On appeal, the defendant argues that the judge erroneously denied his motions because there was insufficient evidence of deliberate premeditation, malice, and extreme atrocity or cruelty.

In reviewing the denial of a motion for a required finding of not guilty, we consider the evidence, together with permissible inferences from that evidence, in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-677 (1979), and "determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Commonwealth v. Cordle, 412 Mass. 172, 175 (1992). See Commonwealth v. Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 140-141 (2001). The relevant inquiry is "whether the evidence would permit a jury to find guilt, not whether the evidence requires such a finding." Commonwealth v. Fisher, 433 Mass. 340, 342-343 (2001), quoting ...