Commonwealth v. Okoro

• Decision Date: 23 March 2015
• Docket Number: SJC–11659.
• Citation: 26 N.E.3d 1092,471 Mass. 51
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Emmanuel OKORO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

471 Mass. 51

26 N.E.3d 1092

COMMONWEALTH

v.Emmanuel OKORO.

SJC–11659.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Plymouth.

Submitted Sept. 3, 2014.

Decided March 23, 2015.

Ruth Greenberg for the defendant.

Matthew Libby, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

The following submitted briefs for amici curiae:

Jeanne M. Kepthorne for Markeese Mitchell.

Barbara Kaban, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for Youth Advocacy Division, Committee for Public Counsel Services, & others.

Laura M. Banwarth, Plymouth, for Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Richard L. Goldman for Terrance Pabon.

Present: GANTS, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, DUFFLY, LENK, & HINES, JJ.

Opinion

BOTSFORD

, J.

The defendant, Emmanuel Okoro, appeals from his conviction of murder in the second degree. He was fifteen years old at the time of the offense, January 1, 2008. Pursuant to the sentencing statutes then in effect, the defendant received a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with eligibility for parole after fifteen years. The defendant argues that in light of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Miller v. Alabama, –––U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 2460, 2469, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012)

, and this court's decision in Diatchenko v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 466 Mass. 655, 658, 1 N.E.3d 270 (2013) (Diatchenko I ), the defendant's mandatory life sentence constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of both the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 26 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, and also violates constitutional guarantees of due process and separation of powers. The defendant further argues that his conviction should be overturned because (1) the trial judge erroneously prevented him from introducing expert testimony and arguing that the way the brain develops in children and adolescents makes the condition of being a youth itself a mitigating factor to be considered in determining whether the defendant was capable of forming the requisite mental state for murder; and (2) the judge erred in declining to instruct the jury on defense of another. For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the defendant's sentence does meet the requirements of the Eighth Amendment and art. 26, as well as other constitutional rights, and we reject the defendant's challenges to his underlying conviction.

Background. 1. Facts. Although witnesses' accounts differed substantially and included contradictory testimony as to the exact events on the night of the killing, the jury could have found the following. On December 31, 2007, the defendant, aged fifteen, had been drinking and smoking marijuana with friends and family and was very drunk. Eventually, the defendant and his companions, including his sister, Iesha Strickland, attempted to go to a nearby New Year's Eve party, but they were turned away at the door by the victim, Markeen Starks, and another young man. The victim was known to the defendant and his sister, and had been involved in a series of violent incidents that appeared to constitute retaliation against Strickland after she had spoken to the police regarding an earlier killing.

At some point before midnight, the defendant and his companions left the site of the New Year's Eve party and went home. After the party ended, a crowd gathered outside the party site and a fight broke out. The defendant and his companions saw this crowd and went toward it, and this time, the defendant was carrying a knife. The defendant and the victim confronted one another, and although it is unclear who started the physical fight between them, the defendant stabbed the victim multiple times.¹ The victim ultimately died from these wounds

.

The defendant presented evidence at trial concerning the level of his cognitive functioning, as well as concerning his psychological profile and family background. In particular, the defendant was tested shortly after the stabbing incident and found to have an intelligence quotient (IQ) score of 75 or 76, which placed him in the fifth percentile for youths his age in terms of cognitive functioning. This level of cognitive functioning has been characterized as “borderline deficient,” and is associated with difficulties in problem solving, flexible thinking, and detection of options. In addition, psychological testing indicated that although the defendant was not severely mentally ill and was able to perceive reality accurately, he was vulnerable to “emotional disregulation,” meaning that under stressful conditions he had a tendency toward simplified approaches to problem solving and being primarily influenced by emotions. The defendant also previously had been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder

, which is typically associated with rule breaking and “profoundly

annoying” behaviors, although not typically with violence.

A forensic psychologist who examined the defendant opined that much of the defendant's personality presentation could have been related to the combination of his cognitive limitations and his history of “exposure to chronic and severe domestic violence.” In particular, the defendant suffered abuse at the hands of his father for approximately two years, including punishments such as being forced to stand with his hands in the air for hours at a time or to kneel on hard, uncooked rice and salt. At around age ten, the defendant was removed from his parents' home and placed in foster care, where he remained for three and one-half years. During that time, he went through seven different foster homes due to behavioral problems, and he eventually went to live at a group residential home for youth. By the time the defendant was about thirteen years old, his father had been deported to Nigeria, and the defendant was allowed to return to live with his mother, but by then he was struggling with poor anger management, disruptive behavior, and alcohol abuse problems. Although he was taking several types of prescribed medications to help with his behavior when he returned to his mother, his mother decided to “wean him off” these medications, and instead allowed him to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana, because it kept him “more calm.”

2. Procedural history. In February, 2008, the defendant was indicted on a charge of murder in the first degree, and he was tried in December, 2010. The jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the second degree,² and he was sentenced to life imprisonment with parole eligibility after fifteen years. See G.L. c. 265, § 2

, as amended through St. 1982, c. 554, § 3; G.L. c. 127, § 133A

, as amended through St. 2000, c. 159, § 230. See also G.L. c. 119, § 72B, inserted by St. 1996, c. 200, § 14. On January 7, 2011, the defendant moved for a new trial or, alternatively, for a reduction of the verdict to manslaughter pursuant to Mass. R.Crim. P. 25(b)(2), as amended, 420 Mass. 1502 (1995). He also filed a notice of appeal from his conviction on January 13, 2011. The trial judge denied the defendant's motion without a hearing. Thereafter, the defendant's new appellate counsel filed on the defendant's behalf a renewed motion for a new trial and a request for resentencing.

In the renewed motion, the defendant argued that due to his young age, he should be entitled to individualized resentencing at which his age could be taken into account. The trial judge denied the motion. The defendant later requested reconsideration of the denial in light of this court's recent decisions in Diatchenko I, 466 Mass. 655, 1 N.E.3d 270

, and Commonwealth v. Brown, 466 Mass. 676, 1 N.E.3d 259 (2013). In denying the defendant's request, the trial judge stated that although he was “no[t] unsympathetic to the defendant's plight,” “[a]ge, remorse and abusive upbringing and rehabilitation” were not grounds to allow the request under rule 25(b)(2).

The defendant filed an appeal in the Appeals Court from the denials of his motion for a new trial and his request for reconsideration, which was consolidated with the pending appeal from his conviction. This court granted the defendant's application for direct appellate review.³

Discussion. 1. Constitutionality of the defendant's sentence. a. Eighth Amendment and art. 26

. At the time of the defendant's offense, every conviction of murder in the second degree, regardless of a defendant's age at the time the offense was committed, required a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with eligibility for parole after fifteen years.⁴ The defendant argues that

because he was a juvenile at the time of the offense, this mandatory life sentence, despite his eligibility for future parole, is unconstitutional. Although the defendant grounds his claim in both the Eighth Amendment and art. 26

, the thrust of his argument is essentially that the Eighth Amendment, as explicated in the United States Supreme Court's decision in Miller, 132 S.Ct. 2455, requires individualized sentencing by the “sentencer”—the judge—in every case in which a juvenile homicide offender⁵ receives a life sentence.⁶

We agree with the defendant that certain language in Miller can be read to suggest that individualized sentencing is required whenever juvenile homicide offenders are facing a sentence of life in prison. See Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2467

(“mandatory penalties [such as life in prison without parole] preclude a sentencer from taking account of an offender's age and the wealth of characteristics and circumstances attendant to it”); id. at 2468 (“in imposing a State's harshest penalties, a sentencer misses too much if he treats every child as an adult”). See also id. at 2466 n. 6 (“Graham [v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010),] established one rule ... for nonhomicide offenses, while we set out a different one [individualized sentencing] for homicide offenses”). However,

Miller 's actual holding was narrow and specifically tailored to the cases before the Court: presented with two juvenile defendants convicted of...