Commonwealth v. Kirkland
| Decision Date | 22 February 2023 |
| Docket Number | SJC-11667 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Tamik KIRKLAND. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Merritt Schnipper, for the defendant.
Joseph G.A. Coliflores, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Cypher, Kafker, & Georges, JJ.
A jury convicted the defendant, Tamik Kirkland, of murder in the first degree on the theory of deliberate premeditation for the death of Sheldon Innocent (victim), who was fatally shot at a Springfield barbershop. The defendant was also convicted on several related charges connected to the barbershop shooting and a subsequent altercation with police at a private residence in which the defendant shot a police officer who was trying to arrest him.1 The defendant now appeals from his convictions of murder in the first degree, armed assault with intent to murder, and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, as well as from the denial of his postconviction motion for a new trial.
On appeal, the defendant raises three principal arguments. First, he argues that his trial counsel were ineffective because they failed to present expert testimony on the impossibility of the defendant matching eyewitness descriptions of the perpetrator due to his hairstyle. Second, he asserts that they were ineffective for failing to present expert testimony on eyewitness misidentification, based on environmental factors and impermissibly suggestive photographic array procedures used by police. Third, the defendant argues that the trial judge erred in excluding certain third-party culprit evidence on the basis that it did not provide a "substantial connecting link" between the third party and the victim's murder, and that the judge who denied his motion for a new trial (motion judge) erred in his evaluation of the defendant's ineffective assistance of counsel claim, where the defendant presented additional third-party culprit evidence that was not presented at trial. The defendant also argues that each of these errors should have entitled him to a new trial. Finally, the defendant argues that he is entitled to a new trial pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E.
We discern no reversible error in our review of the defendant's direct appeal or the postconviction motion for a new trial. Having thoroughly examined the record, we also conclude that there is no reason to grant relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.
Thus, we affirm the defendant's convictions and the denial of his postconviction motion.
1. Background. a. Facts. We summarize the facts that the jury could have found at the defendant's trial, reserving certain details for our discussion of the legal issues.
At around noon on a balmy Saturday, April 30, 2011, Darryl King was giving the victim a haircut at a Springfield barbershop when the defendant, wearing a black sweatshirt with a hood ("hoodie"), black T-shirt, jeans, and black gloves, walked backwards into the barbershop. The hood was pulled "over his head," but King noticed that the defendant's hair was braided.
The defendant turned around, and King made eye contact with him, noticing his eyes were red. King asked the man whether he wanted a haircut. The defendant said nothing as he pulled out two firearms, one at a time, from the front pocket of the hoodie. Seeing the guns, King said, in part, "Don't shoot me, man." The defendant began shooting inside the barbershop at around 12:04 P.M. 2 King was shot eleven times but survived.3 The victim was shot four times and succumbed to his injuries.
Rodney Ball, who was at a convenience store next door, heard the shots, left the store, and saw a Black man with medium-brown skin, standing five feet, seven inches to five feet, eight inches tall, in jeans and a black hoodie with the hood "on his head," leaving the barbershop and walking "briskly" towards Montrose Street. Local and State law enforcement were dispatched to the barbershop and directed to look for a "suspect dressed in dark clothing," including a black hoodie, with a "slim build, running from the scene" down Montrose Street and toward Burr Street.
The defendant entered a house on Burr Street through the back door and encountered Lekeanna Carter styling Carolyn Wright's hair in the living room. A third woman, Linka Baulkman, and two infants -- Baulkman's and Carter's -- were also present. The defendant was wearing a black hoodie with the hood off his head, black pants, and black gloves, and he was holding a cell phone and chrome-topped pistol. Talking into the cell phone, he looked out the windows and asked about a car coming for him. He then pulled a second black pistol from his waist area and hid it in a reclining chair. He also asked Baulkman for a change of clothes, which she provided.
Meanwhile, Carter and Wright fled upstairs with Carter's baby, leaving the defendant downstairs. While they were upstairs, the defendant left the house and got into the open trunk of a gray Chevrolet Impala that had backed into the driveway. As the driver attempted to leave, State and local law enforcement surrounded the vehicle. The trunk opened and, at approximately 12:16 P.M. , the defendant began shooting at police, hitting State police Trooper Stephen Gregorczyk in his bulletproof vest. Police returned fire, wounding the defendant. Law enforcement then pulled the defendant, wearing dark-colored pants and sneakers, from the trunk and confiscated a Taurus pistol from him. The defendant was taken into custody, transported to the hospital, and hospitalized for his injuries.
Police secured the Burr Street house and, after obtaining a search warrant, discovered a pair of black gloves and a black firearm -- later identified as a Ruger pistol -- stuffed "between the cushion and the armrest" of a reclining chair in the living room. The Ruger had "no rounds in the weapon or in the magazine."4 Behind the recliner, police found "an item of black clothing on the floor" that matched the description of the black hoodie worn by the barbershop shooter. Investigators also collected evidence from the driveway, including a pair of black jeans, a second pair of jeans, and Nike sneakers.
A few hours after the shooting, police interviewed King in the hospital, took a statement from him, and showed him an array of eight frontal view photographs, from which he selected the defendant's photograph as the barbershop shooter. This array was also shown to Ball, who selected two photographs, including one of the defendant, as "possibly" being the person he saw leaving the barbershop after he heard shots fired, but he was not entirely sure.
Police also took a statement from, and conducted an array with, Wright that afternoon. Wright was only "[fifty] percent" sure that she recognized, from the frontal view array, the defendant as the man with the gun inside the Burr Street house but identified him based on his eyes and confirmed the identification from a profile view array, this time also recognizing his "cornrow" hairstyle. Carter also gave a statement to police that day, describing the man at the house as having dark skin and wide eyes. At trial, she further recalled the defendant, the man she saw at the house, being average height and slim but with a bit of muscle.
A State police ballistics expert conducted test firings with the Taurus pistol confiscated from the defendant and the Ruger pistol recovered from the reclining chair. He then compared these firings with shell casings recovered from the barbershop and the driveway. Certain shell casings from the barbershop matched the Ruger pistol, while others matched the Taurus pistol.5 Shell casings recovered from the driveway also matched the test firings from the Taurus pistol fired by the defendant while he was in the trunk of the car.
Samples from the Ruger pistol, black sweatshirt, and gloves recovered from the living room of the Burr Street house were submitted to the State police crime laboratory (crime lab) for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing. Analysis of the interior of the gloves revealed a complex mixture of four profiles, including one major DNA profile that matched the defendant's profile.6 Analysis of "the interior cuffs and interior tag area from the sweatshirt" found in the living room also revealed "a complex mixture" of four profiles, including one major DNA profile that matched the defendant's.7 "No detectable human DNA was recovered from" the Ruger pistol. The crime lab also tested for gunshot residue on the gloves and the black sweatshirt from the living room.8 The sweatshirt sleeves and front pocket tested positive for gunshot residue, as did the gloves.
b. Procedural history. A grand jury indicted the defendant on sixteen separate counts, including murder in the first degree.9 Prior to trial, the defendant moved to suppress King's and Ball's identifications, arguing that the police used an "impermissibly suggestive identification procedure" by using a photograph of the defendant with a distinctive braided hairstyle different from the hairstyles of the men in the other photographs in the array; the witnesses were primed to identify the defendant as the barbershop shooter because the defendant had appeared in media reports "in the days leading up to the shooting" because of his escape from State prison; and the witnesses "had a limited opportunity to observe the assailant." After a three-day hearing, the judge, who was also the trial judge, denied the suppression motion, finding that the photograph of the defendant used in the police array was "not so singularly distinctive" that it was impermissibly suggestive and that mere exposure to the defendant's image in the media was not grounds for suppression.
The defendant was tried before a Superior Court jury in May and June of 2013. At trial, the defendant sought to introduce reasonable doubt by suggesting that he did not have cornrows as claimed by several eyewitnesses but that a...
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