Commonwealth v. Lester
| Decision Date | 18 November 2020 |
| Docket Number | SJC-10129 |
| Citation | 157 N.E.3d 83,486 Mass. 239 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Aaron LESTER. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Elizabeth A. Billowitz, Boston, for the defendant.
Cynthia Cullen Payne, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Lowy, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.1
This case arises out of the shooting deaths of Tyrone Lewis, Jr., and Adrian White. On March 29, 2005, a grand jury indicted the defendant on eight counts, including two counts of murder.2 On February 7, 2007, the Commonwealth proceeded to trial against the defendant, Aaron Lester, and two codefendants, Maurice Felder and Derrick Washington, under a joint venture theory.3 ,4 After trial, the jury found the defendant guilty on both indictments charging murder in the first degree.5 The defendant filed a notice of appeal on March 1, 2007.6 On November 5, 2018, the defendant filed a motion for a new trial, which the trial judge denied on December 20, 2018. We consolidated the defendant's appeal from that denial with his direct appeal.
On appeal, the defendant seeks reversal of his convictions, claiming that each of the following amounts to reversible error: (1) the judge's admission of a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) expert's testimony regarding a nonexclusion result; (2) the judge's admission in evidence of charts depicting DNA test results; (3) several of the prosecutor's closing argument statements; (4) the judge's jury instruction that prior inconsistent statements may not be considered substantively; and (5) the judge's denial of the defendant's motion for a new trial, asserting that court room closure during voir dire was unconstitutional. Following plenary review of the record pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E, we affirm.
Background. 1. The murder. We recite the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, reserving certain details for later discussion. See Commonwealth v. Tavares, 484 Mass. 650, 651, 144 N.E.3d 268 (2020). After drinking to excess at a friend's Super Bowl party, on Sunday, February 6, 2005, Mark Young became very intoxicated. At about 2:15 P . M ., Young's girlfriend, Vanessa Fulton, brought Young home, helped him into bed, and, after a couple of hours, left with plans to return later that evening. Around 9 P . M ., Young awoke to the sound of an incoming telephone call from Felder, Young's acquaintance and a codefendant in this case, who said, "I'm downstairs." Young then went downstairs, opened the front door, and saw Felder with the defendant and Washington, the other codefendant.7 Young permitted all three men to enter.
Around 10 P . M ., the three visitors asked Young to contact Lewis to buy "crack" cocaine.8 When Young refused, the defendant forced Young to telephone Lewis at gunpoint. The three assailants then forced Young to strip down to his boxer shorts, creating an excuse for Young to remain inside and thus ensuring that Lewis would enter Young's house once he arrived.
When Lewis arrived and entered the house about twenty minutes later, the three assailants beat him, forced him to strip down to his boxer shorts, and ordered him to contact his driver, White, and to tell White to come inside. When White entered the house, the three assailants forced him to strip down to his boxer shorts as well.9
Lewis offered to pay the three assailants $20,000 to release him and White. The assailants permitted Lewis to contact his girlfriend. After two telephone conversations with Lewis, Lewis's girlfriend handed a gift bag to an individual, whom she later identified as Felder,10 who arrived at her home in a "goldish" car.11 About twenty minutes later, Felder returned to Young's house, and Young then heard the assailants counting and dividing money in another room.
Shortly thereafter, the defendant asked Young to give him sheets and a pillow. After Young complied, the three assailants forced Young, Lewis, and White, at gunpoint, up to the attic and onto the floor, where the assailants used the bedding to restrain the victims. Specifically, the defendant used a pillowcase to tie up Young.
Each assailant carried his own handgun. According to Young, the defendant held a nine millimeter, Felder held a .22 caliber Ruger, and Washington held either a .45 or .40 caliber gun. The defendant stood over Young, Washington stood over Lewis, and Felder stood over White. The assailants decided to kill the victims simultaneously, and as the assailants counted down, Young turned his head slightly, heard gunshots, and felt something hot brush his left cheek.12 When Young opened his eyes, he saw that Lewis had been shot in the head. Young proceeded to "play dead." White then jumped up and ran down the stairs, the assailants chased him, and Young heard numerous gunshots coming from the stairwell.
After he heard the assailants run down the stairs, Young got up, went to a window, and saw two people get into a car. Young then went downstairs himself and saw White at the bottom of the stairwell, still alive. Young fled to get help. After knocking at several houses, one neighbor finally answered. The neighbor testified that Young was barefoot, wearing only boxer shorts, shivering, and looking "very, very scared." Young told the neighbor that two of his friends had been shot and killed. They called the police.
2. The investigation. When the police arrived at Young's house shortly after midnight on February 7, they found White's body at the bottom of the attic stairs13 and Lewis on the attic floor, still tied up and alive. Lewis died later due to multiple gunshot wounds. From Young's house, the police recovered discharge cartridge casings from three different weapons, the types of which matched Young's testimony regarding the types of firearms the defendants possessed.14 The police observed a bullet hole next to where Young stated he had been lying down, which led through the attic floor and through the ceiling of the bathroom below. The police recovered one discharged nine millimeter cartridge casing from the attic, as well as one spent projectile that was consistent with the nine millimeter cartridge casing, from the bathroom floor.
Investigators tested several items and surfaces for DNA, including the pillowcase the defendant used to restrain Young. The pillowcase sample revealed DNA from multiple people, of which the defendant was a potential contributor.15
In Young's statement to police, he initially lied and said he had been a victim of a home invasion by three masked intruders. After the district attorney agreed to dispose of Young's pending charges and assured Young that he could leave the Commonwealth, Young told the police the above described version of events.16
During a routine traffic stop later that afternoon, the police arrested the defendant and Washington. The police subsequently recovered $5,907 in cash from the defendant's pocket and $6,702 in cash in Washington's pocket. The police had already arrested Felder earlier that morning, at the hospital, where he was seeking treatment for a gunshot wound to his hand. Inside Felder's pants pocket, the police found $7,000 in cash, divided into seven bundles of $1,000, each of which was folded and bound with a black band.
Discussion. 1. Pillowcase DNA. At trial, the Commonwealth's expert testified that with regard to the mixed DNA sample found on the pillowcase, the defendant was a potential contributor, but not a match, as it was impossible to discern a match from a mixed sample. We refer to such DNA evidence as a "nonexclusion" result, as opposed to an inconclusive result, the latter of which provides "no information whatsoever due to insufficient sample material, contamination, or some other problem" (quotations omitted and emphasis in original). Commonwealth v. Barnett, 482 Mass. 632, 639, 125 N.E.3d 724 (2019), quoting Commonwealth v. Mattei, 455 Mass. 840, 853, 920 N.E.2d 845 (2010). See Commonwealth v. Cameron, 473 Mass. 100, 106, 39 N.E.3d 723 (2015). The expert also testified that the "probability of a randomly selected unrelated individual having contributed DNA to [the pillowcase sample was] approximately ... [one] in [twenty-one] of the African-American population."17 ,18
As part of his report, the expert compiled four DNA charts (original DNA charts) illustrating the DNA analysis.19 For trial, the prosecutor both enlarged the original DNA charts and created new DNA charts by cutting and pasting parts of the original DNA charts onto two separate, smaller DNA charts (smaller DNA charts).20 The prosecutor displayed all six DNA charts during the expert's testimony without objection. After the expert's testimony, however, the judge admitted all six DNA charts in evidence over the three defendants' objections.21 The DNA charts did not include the expert's conclusions or any statistical analysis.
2. Admission of DNA charts in evidence.22 The defendant argues that the judge abused his discretion by admitting the DNA charts that contained the nonmatch results, over objection, without including the statistical analysis. We disagree.
We have repeatedly acknowledged the importance of statistical analyses to explain DNA matches to the jury, concluding that the probative value of a DNA match is negligible without such analysis. See Commonwealth v. Cole, 473 Mass. 317, 327, 41 N.E.3d 1073 (2015), quoting Commonwealth v. Tassone, 468 Mass. 391, 402-403 n.2, 11 N.E.3d 67 (2014) (). See also Commonwealth v. Barbosa, 457 Mass. 773, 789, 933 N.E.2d 93 (2010), cert. denied, 563 U.S. 990, 131 S.Ct. 2441, 179 L.Ed.2d 1214 (2011), quoting Commonwealth v. Lanigan, 419 Mass. 15, 20, 641 N.E.2d 1342 (1994) (). As a result, we...
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