Summary
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reviewed the first-degree murder and related weapons convictions of brothers John and Jimmy Evans. The court addressed evidentiary rulings, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance claims, and the denial of new-trial and investigative-funding motions, affirming the convictions and declining to grant relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E. Although the court found error in admitting a witness’s grand jury testimony as past recollection recorded, it concluded that the error was harmless.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the defendants' constitutional cross-examination rights were violated when the trial judge limited questioning about a prosecution witness's pending charges to describing them as serious felony charges.
- Whether grand jury testimony was admissible as past recollection recorded or under the Daye-Sineiro rule, and whether its erroneous admission was prejudicial.
- Whether the prosecutor improperly used a prior inconsistent statement to impeach a witness as a subterfuge for admitting otherwise inadmissible hearsay.
- Whether exclusion of a non-testifying witness's prior statement violated the defendants' right to present a defense.
- Whether the prosecutor committed misconduct through vouching, appeals to sympathy, or disparagement of a defense witness.
- Whether trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to object, seek severance, challenge the indictment or trial evidence, or investigate forensic evidence.
- Whether newly discovered evidence required an evidentiary hearing or a new trial.
- Whether the defendants were entitled to funds for forensic testing in support of their new-trial motions.
- Whether the convictions should be reduced or a new trial ordered under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.
Holdings
- The trial judge did not abuse the broad discretion afforded in limiting cross-examination about Alton Clarke's pending criminal charges to their characterization as serious felony charges because the defendants were still able to explore the witness's bias and motive to cooperate.
- The trial judge erred by admitting Marvette Neal's grand jury testimony as substantive evidence under the past-recollection-recorded exception because there was no evidence that Neal adopted the recording when the events were fresh in his memory.
- The prosecutor properly impeached Neal with testimony from Detective Dorch because Neal's cross-examination supplied a legitimate evidentiary basis for the prior inconsistent statement; the impeachment was not merely a subterfuge to place hearsay before the jury.
- Excluding Hawkins's prior statement to police did not violate the defendants' right to present a defense because the statement was hearsay, no relevant testimony existed against which it could be used for impeachment, and the statement lacked sufficient reliability to justify constitutional admission.
- The prosecutor's challenged closing remarks did not require reversal because the comments were either fair inferences or paraphrases of the evidence, and the judge promptly and forcefully cured the sympathy-related comment.
- The defendants failed to establish ineffective assistance because the challenged decisions were not manifestly unreasonable and the alleged investigative omissions were not shown likely to have influenced the jury's verdict.
- The motion judge properly denied the motions for a new trial and an evidentiary hearing because the asserted evidence was not newly discovered, did not raise a substantial issue, and included inadmissible hearsay from a codefendant.
- The defendants were not entitled to funds for forensic testing because they failed to make a prima facie showing that the requested testing would produce results warranting a new trial.
Key quotations
“A defendant seeking a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence must establish both that the evidence is newly discovered and that it casts real doubt on the justice of the conviction.” (439 Mass. at 203)
“The affidavit of ... a codefendant who did not testify ‘is the weakest sort of evidence.’” (439 Mass. at 204)
Factual background
John and Jimmy Evans were among four men who entered a crowded Boston restaurant shortly after an earlier shooting near a nightclub. After one companion identified the victim, Jimmy approached and shot at the victim several times, and John subsequently approached and fired at him; the victim later died from his wounds. The four men fled in a Lexus driven by John, discarded two firearms during a police pursuit, and were apprehended. Ballistics evidence linked both recovered guns to shell casings and bullet fragments found at the restaurant, including a projectile recovered from the victim.
Procedural history
A jury convicted John and Jimmy Evans of murder in the first degree and related offenses after a joint trial on a theory of joint venture. The defendants filed motions for a new trial and requests for funds for investigation; a Superior Court judge denied the motions without an evidentiary hearing. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the convictions and the orders denying a new trial and costs, and declined to exercise its authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to reduce the convictions or order a new trial.