Summary
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Thomas Mercado’s first-degree murder conviction on theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty and affirmed the denial of his motion for a new trial. The court rejected claims concerning ineffective assistance of counsel, closure of a witness-immunity hearing, and erroneous jury instructions on the burden of proof. Exercising review under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, the court held that the evidence was insufficient to support felony-murder based on armed robbery but left the conviction undisturbed because the other theories were adequately supported.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether trial counsel was ineffective in preparing and presenting the motion to suppress statements made during Mercado's interview by law enforcement in Puerto Rico.
- Whether closing the courtroom during a hearing on the Commonwealth's witness-immunity petition violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.
- Whether the trial judge's misstatements concerning the Commonwealth's burden of proof created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.
- Whether the court should exercise its authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to order a new trial because the evidence was insufficient on the felony-murder theory or otherwise warranted relief.
- Whether the trial judge abused his discretion by denying the motion for a new trial without an evidentiary hearing.
Holdings
- The defendant did not establish ineffective assistance of counsel or a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice arising from the denial of the motion to suppress. Even assuming the suppression ruling was erroneous, exclusion of the challenged statement would not likely have affected the jury's conclusion because the Commonwealth presented strong independent evidence of guilt and other evidence of consciousness of guilt.
- Closing the courtroom and excluding the defendant and defense counsel during the Commonwealth's hearing on a witness-immunity petition under G. L. c. 233, § 20E, did not violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.
- The trial judge's several slips substituting 'the defendant' for 'the Commonwealth' and omitting 'not' did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice when the charge was viewed as a whole.
- The evidence was insufficient to support Mercado's first-degree murder conviction on a felony-murder theory predicated on armed robbery.
- The first-degree murder verdict remained undisturbed because the evidence was sufficient to support the theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty, even though the felony-murder theory was unsupported.
Key quotations
“The closed hearing on the witness immunity application thus did not violate the defendant’s right to a public trial.” (152)
“Because a reasonable juror could not have misunderstood or have been misled by these slips of tongue, we conclude that the errors in the jury instructions did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.” (154)
“The record contains no evidence that the defendant was robbing or attempting to rob the victim (or anyone else) at the time of the shooting.” (155)
Factual background
The victim was shot and killed in the hallway of a Brockton apartment building on the night of February 6 or early morning of February 7, 2006. Multiple witnesses placed Mercado at the apartment, in the hallway immediately before the shooting, and fleeing afterward; one witness testified that she saw him fire the gun. The victim sustained six gunshot wounds, and six casings fired from the same weapon were recovered in the hallway. Evidence also showed that Mercado had traveled to Puerto Rico after the shooting and had used the name Ariel Rivera.
Procedural history
A Superior Court jury convicted Mercado of murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate premeditation, extreme atrocity or cruelty, and felony-murder. While his direct appeal was pending, he filed a motion for a new trial alleging ineffective assistance of counsel; the trial judge denied the motion without an evidentiary hearing. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the conviction on the deliberate-premeditation and extreme-atrocity-or-cruelty theories and affirmed the denial of the new-trial motion, while concluding that the evidence was insufficient to support felony-murder based on armed robbery.