Commonwealth v. Lynch

• Decision Date: 07 March 2003
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. EDWARD H. LYNCH, JR.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

439 Mass. 532

789 NE 2d 1052

COMMONWEALTH v. EDWARD H. LYNCH, JR.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Plymouth.

March 7, 2003.

June 12, 2003.

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

Emanuel Howard for the defendant.

Mary E. Lee, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

CORDY, J.

After a jury trial, Edward H. Lynch, Jr., was convicted of murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. He subsequently filed motions for a new trial, for funds to conduct postconviction discovery and other investigations, and for a reduced verdict. The motions were denied by the same judge who presided at the trial, and Lynch's appeal therefrom was consolidated with the direct appeal from his murder conviction.

The claims argued on appeal principally arise out of the denial of Lynch's motion for a new trial. He first contends that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to call three additional witnesses to testify as to the voluntariness of statements he made to the State police after his arrest; in failing to object, to move to strike, or to seek a limiting instruction regarding the prosecutor's cross-examination of a defense expert; and in conducting an ineffective reenactment of the stabbing of the victim during Lynch's direct examination. Lynch next claims that a prosecution witness wore sunglasses during his testimony, depriving Lynch of eye to eye contact in violation of his constitutional right of confrontation, and that the judge's instruction regarding voluntary manslaughter impermissibly shifted the burden of proof on provocation, thereby creating a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice. Lynch also claims that a postverdict inquiry of the jury should have been conducted regarding whether memorial buttons worn by the family of the victim were observed by the jury and acted as an extraneous influence on their deliberations, and that it was error to deny his motion for funds to conduct posttrial discovery and investigations. Finally, Lynch asks the court to exercise its power under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to reduce the verdict or order a new trial. Following our review of the entire record of the proceedings pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E, we affirm the conviction and find no basis on which to grant relief. Background. We recite the facts as the jury could have found them in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, reserving certain details for discussion in conjunction with the issues raised.

In June, 1992, Lynch resided in a two-room cottage on the grounds of a hog farm in Lakeville. He was employed by the owner of the farm to perform various chores including feeding the pigs and caring for the grounds of the farm, and was allowed to live in the cottage rent free. Early in the afternoon of June 5, 1992, Lynch took a taxicab to a bar in Taunton where he proceeded to drink "twelve to fourteen bottles of beer" over a period of several hours. At approximately 7 P.M. he moved on to another bar in Taunton, the Lounge 44, where he remained until it closed at 1 A.M., leaving only once for ten minutes around 9:30 P.M. to purchase a pint bottle of vodka. While at Lounge 44, Lynch drank beer and, after it closed, huddled in a doorway sipping his bottle of vodka and napping until 6 A.M., when he entered a luncheonette and had breakfast. After breakfast, Lynch returned to Lounge 44 and resumed drinking. Between 8 A.M. and 2 P.M. when Lynch finally left Lounge 44, he had consumed (according to his testimony) approximately seven bottles of beer and seven rum and cokes.

At noon, Andrea Geremia entered Lounge 44. Lynch perceived her to be a prostitute, and in the course of a brief conversation, Geremia agreed to engage in sexual activity with him in exchange for fifty dollars. At 2 P.M. they left in a taxicab driven by Fred Howe. Howe had driven Lynch home from bars in Taunton on "quite a few" occasions, and, on this occasion, did not think Lynch was intoxicated.

Lynch and Geremia entered his cottage and sat at the kitchen table for some period of time. She drank a soft drink and he had two beers. He gave her fifty dollars which she tucked into her bra. They then proceeded to the bedroom where Geremia attempted to perform oral sex on Lynch, who was unable to become aroused and passed out before the sexual act was completed. Sometime thereafter, Lynch awoke to the sound of a squeaky dresser drawer being opened. He saw Geremia walking away from the drawer with her hand down her shirt and believed that she had stolen his money. He became angry and followed her into the kitchen where she confronted him with a ten-inch boning knife. Lynch, at six feet, two inches tall and weighing 180 pounds, easily overpowered the much smaller Geremia, grabbed the knife from her, and stabbed her in the chest and stomach. He then watched as she bled to death. The next day Lynch used a front-end loader to bury Geremia's body in a trench on the farm used for the disposal of dead pigs. Her disappearance remained unsolved, and her whereabouts unknown, until early in 1993.

In or about October, 1992, while incarcerated at the Plymouth County house of correction on unrelated charges, Lynch confided in another inmate, Steven Moosick, that he had stabbed "a girl" he suspected of robbing him and had buried her body. Moosick conveyed the information to another inmate and the police eventually interviewed Moosick. Acting on this information, the State police and Lakeville public works personnel uncovered Geremia's body on January 4, 1993, buried on the hog farm alongside pig carcasses. Her body was badly decomposed but was identified through dental records. A forensic pathologist determined that Geremia had been stabbed five times in the chest and abdomen, each of the wounds sufficient to be fatal by itself. Two other wounds were evident on her back and side.

By the time Geremia's body was discovered, Lynch had been released from custody. At approximately 9:30 P.M. on January 4, 1993, State police found Lynch sleeping in the living room of a friend's apartment. He was arrested and taken to the State police barracks were he was advised of his Miranda rights. He was questioned at the barracks from approximately 10 P.M. until midnight, during which he admitted meeting a woman in Lounge 44, returning to his cottage with her, passing out and awakening to find her taking money from his drawer, snatching a knife from her, stabbing her with it once in the stomach, watching her die, burning her clothes, and dumping her body in a trench on the farm.

At trial, Lynch's defense was that the stabbing had occurred in self-defense or was accidental, that as a result of heavy drinking, his sense of reality was altered at the time of the stabbing, and that the statements he made to the State police on January 4, 1993, were not voluntary. On the witness stand, Lynch denied intentionally stabbing Geremia and testified that she was stabbed inadvertently in the course of a struggle during which Geremia herself held the knife, tried to stab him, kneed him in the groin, and slapped him about the head and face. On realizing she had been stabbed, Lynch testified he tried to stop the bleeding by pressing a dish towel onto the stab wound. Lynch and his trial counsel conducted a choreographed reenactment of this struggle for the jury in which trial counsel portrayed Geremia.

The defense also presented evidence regarding Lynch's extensive history of alcohol abuse, including two specific events: Lynch's heavy consumption of alcohol on June 5 and 6, 1992, just prior to the stabbing, and a drinking binge just prior to his arrest that Lynch claimed lasted seventeen days from December 19, 1992, to January 4, 1993, and included two friends, Donald Podzka and Patricia MacDonald.

Dr. James Lukes testified as the defense expert on the effects of alcohol addiction, excessive drinking, and withdrawal from alcohol on human perceptions, reactions, reason, and anxiety. He testified about "blackout[s]" (periods of time during which a very intoxicated person may appear sober and competent to the casual observer and may perform intricate tasks unconsciously and successfully, but will have no memory of the task), "confabulation" (which occurs when a person confuses reality with fantasy or present circumstance with unrelated past experience, and melds the two together to create a cogent story of events), and "delirium tremors" (which occur when a person goes through the end stage of detoxification and may suffer hallucinations and delusions as well as severe physical illness). Dr. Lukes then opined that, given the events of June 5 and June 6, a hypothetical person with Lynch's history and in Lynch's position on the afternoon of June 6 would have awoken from his passed out state "feeling numb" and could have been "working in a blackout" or "hallucinating" during the period when Geremia was stabbed. Dr. Lukes also opined that, given the nature of the seventeen-day drinking binge, a hypothetical person with Lynch's history and in Lynch's position on the evening of January 4, 1993, would have awoken from his slumber with some anxiety, would have been unable to cogently answer specific questions, and "[r]ecall would be very poor"; he would have been "uncoordinat[ed]," "very agitated," and "very restless." He also testified that Lynch had been a heavy user of alcohol for twenty-five years and had developed a very high tolerance for it.

Ineffective assistance of counsel. In cases of murder in the first degree, we review claims of ineffective assistance of counsel by ascertaining whether there was error committed by the judge, defense counsel, or the prosecutor, and if so whether such error created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice. See Commonwealth v. Kosilek, 423 Mass. 449, 457-458 (1996); Commonwealth v. Wright, 411 Mass. 678, 681-682 (1992). A tactical decision of trial couns...