Case Title: Commonwealth v. Simpkins

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-11601

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2015-01-21T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-11601 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  ADAM SIMPKINS. 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     October 9, 2014. - January 21, 2015. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, 
& Hines, JJ. 
 
 
 
Homicide.  Practice, Criminal, Required finding, Double 
jeopardy.  Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of 
inferior courts.  Accessory and Principal.  Firearms. 
 
 
 
 
Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for 
the county of Suffolk on October 7, 2013.  
 
 
The case was reported by Gants, J.  
 
 
 
Robert L. Sheketoff (Kirsten M. O'Brien with him) for the 
defendant. 
 
Cailin M. Campbell, Assistant District Attorney (Mark T. 
Lee, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
SPINA, J.  In 2011, the defendant, Adam Simpkins, was 
indicted on charges of murdering Cordell MacAfee, armed assault 
with intent to murder Christopher Jones, accessory after the 
fact to murder, and unlawful possession of firearms.  The jury 
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found the defendant guilty of unlawful possession of firearms 
and accessory after the fact.  The jury were unable to reach a 
verdict on the indictments charging murder and armed assault 
with intent to murder, and the judge declared a mistrial as to 
those indictments.1  The Commonwealth requested that sentencing 
on the indictments on which the defendant was found guilty be 
postponed until he could be retried on the indictments that were 
mistried.  The defendant, in turn, moved to dismiss the mistried 
indictments on two theories of double jeopardy, namely, (1) his 
motion for required findings of not guilty at the close of the 
Commonwealth's case should have been allowed, and (2) the 
conviction of accessory after the fact has collateral estoppel 
effect barring retrial of the indictments alleging murder and 
armed assault with intent to murder.  The defendant's motion was 
denied.  The defendant filed this petition under G. L. c. 211, 
§ 3, alleging that the denial of his motion to dismiss violated 
principles of double jeopardy and that the Commonwealth, having 
                     
 
1 The defendant was tried jointly with three other men.  At 
the conclusion of the Commonwealth's case-in-chief, motions for 
required findings of not guilty were allowed as to all charges 
against two codefendants, but denied as to motions for required 
findings of not guilty filed by the defendant and the third 
codefendant.  The third codefendant did not file a written 
motion for a required finding of not guilty, but his oral motion 
was denied.  The jury were unable to reach a verdict with regard 
to the charges against the third codefendant (the only one the 
Commonwealth had identified as a shooter), and the judge 
declared a mistrial as to him.  Although not a matter of record, 
we are informed that the third codefendant was acquitted at his 
retrial. 
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convicted the defendant of being an accessory after the fact, 
was estopped as a matter of law from trying him as a principal 
for the same crime.  See Costarelli v. Commonwealth, 374 Mass. 
677, 679-680 (1978).  The single justice reserved and reported 
the case, without decision, to the full court.  We hold that the 
defendant's motion for required findings of not guilty as to the 
indictments charging murder and armed assault with intent to 
murder should have been allowed.  Because of this holding, we 
need not address the issue of collateral estoppel. 
 
1.  Facts.  We recite the evidence in the light most 
favorable to the Commonwealth.  See Commonwealth v. Latimore, 
378 Mass. 671, 677 (1979).  On May 7, 2010, two men in matching 
cream-colored hooded sweatshirts shot at MacAfee and Jones, his 
brother, as the two sat on the front porch of a home on Roseland 
Street in the Dorchester section of Boston.  One eyewitness 
testified that the defendant was not one of the shooters.  
Before the two men began shooting, one asked MacAfee and Jones, 
"What's up now?"  MacAfee was struck by two bullets of differing 
calibers, once in the neck and once in the stomach.  Jones was 
not injured.  The shooters fled in the direction of Dorchester 
Avenue and then to the defendant's residence on St. Mark's Road. 
 
MacAfee did not die immediately from his wounds but made 
his way to Dorchester Avenue, where he collapsed in the street.  
Police quickly responded and canvassed the neighborhood for the 
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shooters.  Their investigation soon centered on the defendant's 
residence, where an eyewitness indicated the shooters had 
entered.  Police surrounded the house and maintained a watch for 
the next several hours.  There is no evidence of any 
communication between the occupants of the house and police.  
The defendant was the first to emerge from the house, followed 
by his three codefendants and one other person shortly 
thereafter. 
 
One week prior to the shooting, MacAfee and Jones had been 
involved in an incident with a group of men at a parking lot in 
another section of Dorchester.  MacAfee and Jones had traveled 
separately to this location.  Jones arrived first, and a group 
of men that included the defendant approached him.  An 
unspecified member of the group asked Jones, "What's up?"  Jones 
responded, "Ain't shit.  What's up?"  At this point, MacAfee 
arrived and asked if there was a problem.  An unspecified member 
of the group replied that there was not.  The encounter ended 
with the group getting into a white Ford Taurus with out-of-
State license plates. 
 
Shortly before the shooting on May 7, 2010, while sitting 
on the porch with MacAfee, Jones noticed a white Ford Taurus 
travel north on Dorchester Avenue, turn onto King Street, and 
eventually park on St. Mark's Road.  This vehicle was the same 
one present at the encounter one week earlier.  Still prior to 
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the shooting, a group of men then got out of the Taurus and 
entered the defendant's residence on St. Mark's Road.  During 
the investigation, the police recovered a set of fingerprints 
that matched those of the defendant from the left rear passenger 
window of a white Ford Taurus with a New Hampshire registration 
parked on St. Mark's Road.  The registered owner of this vehicle 
was the brother of the one codefendant specifically accused of 
being one of the shooters.  That codefendant was a frequent 
visitor at the defendant's house. 
 
Based on eyewitness testimony, the jury could have found 
that the defendant was among the men who got out of the white 
Ford Taurus and went into the defendant's home before the 
shooting, and that the defendant was not one of the shooters.  
The shooters were seen in the area prior to the arrival of the 
Taurus.  The defendant assisted in concealing the firearms used 
in the shooting. 
 
2.  Discussion.  "[B]ecause double jeopardy principles 
prohibit trying a defendant twice for the same offense, . . . 
the defendant is entitled to a review of the legal sufficiency 
of the evidence before another trial takes place" when the 
defendant has moved for a required finding of not guilty and a 
judge declares a mistrial after the jury fail to agree on a 
verdict in the first trial (citations omitted).  Berry v. 
Commonwealth, 393 Mass. 793, 798 (1985).  We view the evidence 
6 
 
presented in the Commonwealth's case-in-chief in the light most 
favorable to the Commonwealth and ask whether any rational trier 
of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime 
beyond a reasonable doubt.  Latimore, supra. 
 
At trial, the Commonwealth did not pursue the theory that 
the defendant was one of the shooters.  Instead, the 
Commonwealth sought to prove the defendant's guilt under a 
theory of aiding and abetting the shooter.  Commonwealth v. 
Zanetti, 454 Mass. 449, 467 (2009).  In order to convict the 
defendant, the Commonwealth had to prove that the defendant 
knowingly participated in the commission of the crime charged, 
and that the defendant had or shared the required criminal 
intent.  Id. 
 
The Commonwealth argues that the incident between the 
victim and the group that included the defendant one week before 
the shooting clearly can be linked to the shooting itself 
because of the presence of the white Ford Taurus in both places 
and the use of the words "What's up?" and "What's up now?" 
separately during the incidents.  Additionally, the Commonwealth 
argues that the temporal proximity of the arrival of the Taurus 
on St. Mark's Road to the shooting, when coupled with the flight 
of the shooters to the defendant's home, lends weight to the 
conclusion that the defendant assisted in the planning of the 
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enterprise.  We disagree that the evidence reflects the 
essential elements of the crime here at issue. 
 
The Commonwealth claims that the incident the week prior to 
the shooting and the presence of the white Ford Taurus at both 
times constitute some evidence of motive and thus demonstrate 
the requisite intent sufficient to survive a motion for a 
required finding of not guilty.  We disagree.  There is 
insufficient evidence about the nature of the encounter one week 
before the shooting to imply an intent to kill or even a motive 
to kill on the part of anyone involved.  Even were we to infer 
from the presence of the Taurus that the shooters had been 
present at that earlier encounter, we still would lack any 
evidence demonstrating that they had any contact at all with the 
defendant prior to the shooting. 
 
Moreover, even if the shooters were referring to the 
encounter from the prior week when one asked, "What's up now?" 
that is not enough to implicate the defendant in the killing.  
Similarly, the presence of the white Ford Taurus at both 
incidents may create some causal link between the two but, even 
were we to assume that the defendant rode in the vehicle both 
times, nothing further suggests knowing participation by the 
defendant in the shooting itself or the planning thereof.  
Instead, we are asked to draw an inference that the defendant 
aided and abetted the shooters prior to the shooting because the 
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shooting occurred after the defendant arrived home in the Ford 
Taurus and then assisted in concealing the murder weapons by 
putting them inside a wall in his home.  Such an inferential 
leap asks too much.  Compare Commonwealth v. Swafford, 441 Mass. 
329, 339 (2004). 
 
The defendant's role in hiding the murder weapons occurred 
after the commission of the crimes and explains his indictment 
charging him with being an accessory after the fact.  The 
Commonwealth presented no fact which could prove beyond a 
reasonable doubt that such involvement was contemplated prior to 
the shooting. 
 
Seizing on our language in Zanetti, 454 Mass. at 470 
(Appendix), that "aid or assistance . . . in escaping, if such 
help becomes necessary" can suffice to impose criminal 
liability, the Commonwealth urges that the flight of the 
shooters to the defendant's home and the disposal of the weapons 
are proof that the defendant gave aid and assistance to the 
shooters in their escape.  Id. at 467.  That the defendant gave 
aid and assistance to the shooters in their escape is true, but 
this conduct was correctly charged as accessory after the fact, 
not as "aiding and abetting."  The Commonwealth's argument 
parses our holding incorrectly for purposes of imposing 
liability under Zanetti for the crime of murder.  In the jury 
instruction provided in that case, we said liability can be 
9 
 
imposed on participation in a crime when the conduct "take[s] 
the form of agreeing to stand by at, or near the scene of the 
crime to act as a lookout, or to provide aid or assistance in 
committing the crime, or in escaping, if such help becomes 
necessary" (emphasis added).  Id. at 470 (Appendix).  We went on 
to state:  "Mere knowledge that a crime is to be committed is 
not sufficient to convict the defendant. . . .  Mere presence at 
the scene of the crime is not enough to find a defendant guilty.  
Presence alone does not establish a defendant's knowing 
participation in the crime, even if a person knew about the 
intended crime in advance and took no steps to prevent it. . . .  
It is not enough to show that the defendant simply was present 
when the crime was committed or that he . . . knew about it in 
advance."  Id. 
 
The close proximity of the shooters to the defendant's home 
prior to the murder and their flight simply do not support a 
finding beyond a reasonable doubt of any express or implied 
agreement by the defendant before or during the commission of 
the crime to act in concert during or after the shooting.  
Accordingly, as a matter of law, the Commonwealth did not 
satisfy its burden of proof.  The defendant's motion for 
required findings of not guilty on the charges of murder and 
assault with intent to murder should have been allowed. 
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3.  Conclusion.  Because we hold that the motion for 
required findings of not guilty was improperly denied, we do not 
consider the defendant's double jeopardy claims.  We reverse the 
denial of the motion for required findings of not guilty as to 
the charges of murder and assault with intent to murder, and we 
direct entry of verdicts of not guilty as to those indictments.  
The case is remanded to the Superior Court for sentencing on the 
indictments alleging illegal possession of firearms and 
accessory after the fact to murder. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.