Summary
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Kenneth Taylor’s convictions for deliberately premeditated murder and armed home invasion. The court rejected claims concerning confrontation and hearsay issues involving an autopsy report, limits on cross-examination regarding a cooperating witness’s bias, prosecutorial misstatement during closing argument, and a jury instruction concerning the police possession of the defendant’s photograph. The court also declined to grant relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether admission of a testifying pathologist's opinion, based on review of an unavailable pathologist's autopsy materials, violated the defendant's confrontation rights.
- Whether admission of details from the unavailable pathologist's testimonial autopsy report constituted reversible hearsay or confrontation error.
- Whether the trial judge improperly restricted cross-examination of cooperating witness Joseph Cooper concerning his failure to testify at codefendant Antwan Burton's trial.
- Whether the prosecutor's misstatement of witness Charles Rich's testimony during closing argument created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.
- Whether the judge's reference to a gun-license application as a possible source of the defendant's photograph improperly invited the jury to infer that he possessed a gun.
- Whether relief should be granted under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.
Holdings
- The defendant's confrontation rights were not violated when the testifying pathologist expressed his own opinion about the cause of death based on his review of the autopsy report, photographs, toxicology materials, education, training, and experience.
- The details of the autopsy report were inadmissible hearsay and testimonial, but their admission did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.
- The trial judge did not abuse her discretion by sustaining the objection to asking Cooper whether he testified at Burton's trial.
- The prosecutor misstated Charles Rich's testimony, but the misstatement did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice and did not require reversal.
- The instruction was at most unfortunate or erroneous, but it did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.
- The court found no basis to reduce the murder conviction to a lesser degree of guilt or order a new trial under its extraordinary review power.
Key quotations
“The right of a criminal defendant to cross-examine a prosecution witness to show bias is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and art. 12.” (at 380)
“While a trial judge has discretion in this matter, he or she has no discretion to prohibit all inquiry into the subject of bias.” (at 380-381)
“A prosecutor may argue “forcefully for a conviction based on the evidence and on inferences that may reasonably be drawn from the evidence.”” (at 383-384)
Factual background
The Commonwealth's evidence showed that the defendant joined Joseph Cooper, Antwan Burton, and another man in planning and carrying out an armed robbery at a Brockton residence. The assailants forced their way into the victim's apartment, and the defendant was alleged to have fired a nine-millimeter handgun several times; the victim died from a gunshot wound to the heart. Cooper testified against Taylor pursuant to a plea agreement, while other witnesses described masked assailants, including one carrying a gun. The defense primarily challenged the credibility and possible bias of Cooper and Natasha Nelson and argued that no physical or forensic evidence linked Taylor to the murder.
Procedural history
The defendant's first trial ended when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. The defendant unsuccessfully sought to bar retrial on double-jeopardy grounds, including a challenge to proceeding on a joint-venture theory. After retrial convictions, he appealed, asserting confrontation, cross-examination, prosecutorial-closing, and jury-instruction errors, and seeking extraordinary relief under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 278, section 33E.