Nadworny v. Fair
Decision Date | 30 July 1990 |
Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 87-2880-Y. |
Citation | 744 F. Supp. 1194 |
Parties | William NADWORNY, Petitioner, v. Michael FAIR, Commissioner of Corrections, Respondent. |
Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Charles Burnim, Boston, Mass., for petitioner.
Judy Zeprun, Annette Benedetto, Asst. Attys. Gen., Crim. Bureau, Boston, Mass., for respondent.
On June 8, 1983, an Essex County Grand Jury indicted William Nadworny ("Nadworny") for the first degree murder of Lisa Belmonte ("Ms. Belmonte" or "victim") on a date sometime between March 18, 1982 and July 19, 1982.2 Pre-trial proceedings were held before Justice Andrew R. Linscott of the Massachusetts Superior Court and trial came on before Justice Robert Barton of that court, sitting with a jury. The jury convicted Nadworny of second degree murder on June 12, 1984, and Mr. Justice Barton sentenced him to a term of life imprisonment at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Cedar Junction. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court granted direct appellate review and, on December 11, 1985, affirmed the conviction. Commonwealth v. Nadworny, 396 Mass. 342, 486 N.E.2d 675 (1985). Nadworny filed a timely Petition for Rehearing, which the Supreme Judicial Court denied on February 10, 1986. Nadworny then filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. That petition was denied on June 23, 1986. Nadworny v. Massachusetts, 477 U.S. 904, 106 S.Ct. 3274, 91 L.Ed.2d 564 (1986).
On November 10, 1987, Nadworny filed this habeas petition in which he claimed the following six constitutional grounds for relief: 1) denial of due process because there was insufficient evidence to convict ("Ground One"); 2) denial of due process by reason of misapprehension of the Supreme Judicial Court of facts critical to the requirement of a lesser included offense instruction of manslaughter ("Ground Two"); 3) denial of due process in the refusal of an instruction on the lesser included offense of manslaughter ("Ground Three"); 4) denial of due process and compulsory process by the exclusion of evidence tending to give the reason for making a certain statement ("Ground Four"); 5) erroneous introduction of statements obtained in violation of his right against self-incrimination ("Ground Five"); and 6) erroneous introduction of a letter which was authenticated in a manner that violated his right against self-incrimination ("Ground Six").
On December 3, 1987, the Court ordered the Commissioner to file an answer to the habeas petition. The Commissioner answered on January 26, 1988, maintaining that Nadworny had failed to exhaust all of the post-conviction state remedies available to him and that, therefore, petitioner's procedural default barred habeas review of three of his six claims. The Court accepted the position of the Commissioner and, in an opinion dated May 19, 1989, dismissed the petition on the grounds that Nadworny had not exhausted post-conviction state remedies with respect to Grounds One, Two, and Three. Nadworny v. Fair, 685 F.Supp. 20, 23 (D.Mass.1988), rev'd, Nadworny v. Fair, 872 F.2d 1093 (1st Cir.1989). Nadworny appealed the dismissal, asserting that, with respect to Grounds One, Two, and Three, he had exhausted all of the post-conviction state remedies available to him. On April 20, 1989, the First Circuit ruled that this Court had misapplied the test for exhaustion of state remedies and remanded petitioner's case for further proceedings on the merits. Nadworny v. Fair, 872 F.2d 1093, 1103 (1st Cir.1989).
Upon remand, this Court ordered further briefing and heard arguments on the merits of the petitioner's claims. A careful review of the record thus developed permits resolution of five of the six claims in favor of the Commissioner but, in view of intervening legal developments, requires still further briefing on one claim.
Nadworny's first ground is that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of second degree murder. Specifically, he maintains that there was insufficient evidence to allow a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused the death of Ms. Belmonte with malice aforethought or indeed that there was any criminal agency by him in her death sufficient to support a finding of any type of homicide.
In Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), the United States Supreme Court articulated the standard to be applied in a federal habeas proceeding when the claim is made that a person has been convicted in a state criminal proceeding upon insufficient evidence. That standard is "whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789. With respect to the manner in which a federal habeas court must analyze the sufficiency of evidence, the Supreme Court held that "the standard must be applied with explicit reference to the substantive elements of the criminal offense as defined by state law." Id. at 324 n. 16, 99 S.Ct. at 2792 n. 16. Finally, when applying the standard, "a federal court has a duty to assess the historic facts...." Id. at 318, 99 S.Ct. at 2788.
Massachusetts defines the substantive elements of murder by statute in the following manner:
Murder committed with deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, or with extreme atrocity or cruelty, or in the commission or attempted commission of a crime punishable with death or imprisonment for life, is murder in the first degree. Murder which does not appear to be in the first degree is murder in the second degree.... The degree of murder shall be found by the jury.
Mass.Gen.Laws Ann. ch. 265, sec. 1 (West 1970). The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has further defined second degree murder by holding that "the Commonwealth must prove that there was an unlawful killing with malice aforethought." Commonwealth v. Begin, 394 Mass. 192, 197 474 N.E.2d 1120 (1985) (citing Commonwealth v. McCauley, 355 Mass. 554, 559, 246 N.E.2d 425 1969). In addition, the Supreme Judicial Court has held that "the malice aforethought necessary for second degree murder requires a finding that the defendant intended to inflict injury on the victim without legal excuse or palliation." Commonwealth v. Estremera, 383 Mass. 382, 394, 419 N.E.2d 835 (1981) ( ). Finally, while intent to kill is not a necessary element of second degree murder, Begin, 394 Mass. at 197, 474 N.E.2d 1120, "at the very least the defendant must have intended `to do an act creating a plain and strong likelihood that death or grievous harm will follow.'" Estremera, 383 Mass. at 395, 419 N.E.2d 835 (quoting Commonwealth v. Huot, 380 Mass. 403, 408, 403 N.E.2d 411 1980) (overruled on other grounds by Commonwealth v. Bray, 407 Mass. 296, 553 N.E.2d 538 1990). In sum, under Massachusetts law, there are three essential elements of the crime of second degree murder: (1) there must be an unlawful killing, (2) the killing must be committed by the defendant, and (3) the killing must be committed with malice aforethought.
As to whether there has been an unlawful killing, the Commonwealth produced sufficient evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, to enable a rational factfinder to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Belmonte had been killed. First, the Commonwealth provided at trial four witnesses,3 each of whom testified to the effect that Ms. Belmonte was at Nadworny's apartment on the evening of her disappearance. Second, the Commonwealth provided testimony tending to show that Nadworny himself had acknowledged that Ms. Belmonte's death had occurred in his apartment on the night of her disappearance.4 Third, another witness5 testified that Nadworny had told him that the Commonwealth's evidence against him included "blood stains from Lisa's body" found on his apartment floor, thus allowing the jury to infer that the stain on the rug in Nadworny's apartment was Ms. Belmonte's blood.
In addition, a rational factfinder could find beyond a reasonable doubt that the cause of Ms. Belmonte's death was neither natural causes nor accident nor suicide. With respect to Ms. Belmonte's health, there was nothing in the testimony of any of the witnesses who knew her while she was alive6 to the effect that she was in ill health. While there was testimony that Nadworny had told Patricia Flynn that Ms. Belmonte had "shot up" insulin and that there was a family history of diabetes, Ms. Belmonte had tested negative for diabetes on September 24, 1981, less than six months prior to her disappearance. Dr. Butt, the pathologist who examined Ms. Belmonte's body, testified that it was extremely unlikely that she had died of natural causes. Dr. Butt testified further that there was no evidence of either major trauma to the body or pills in her stomach, thus tending to rule out that Ms. Belmonte's death had been due to an accident. Although there was testimony that Nadworny had told his friends that Ms. Belmonte had "overdosed," and it is possible that any evidence of pills in the victim's stomach could have disappeared by the time her body was found, such evidence does not compel the conclusion that the victim died from a drug overdose. Finally, a rational factfinder could properly find that Ms. Belmonte's death had not been caused by suicide, because each witness7 who testified concerning her state of mind just prior to her disappearance observed that she was alert, friendly, and functioning well in all areas with excellent morale.
Also, there was sufficient evidence to permit a rational factfinder to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Nadworny had been the one...
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