Case Title: Commonwealth v. Marrero

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-13399

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2024-01-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-13399 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  ELVIO J. MARRERO. 
 
 
 
Franklin.     October 4, 2023. - January 12, 2024. 
 
Present:  Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt, 
& Georges, JJ. 
 
 
Homicide.  Deoxyribonucleic Acid.  Practice, Criminal, 
Postconviction relief, New trial. 
 
 
 
 
Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on December 7, 1994. 
 
 
Following review by this court, 427 Mass. 65 (1998), a 
motion for a new trial, filed on April 14, 2020, was heard by 
Michael K. Callan, J. 
 
 
A request for leave to appeal was allowed by Lowy, J., in 
the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk. 
 
 
 
Ira L. Gant, Committee for Public Counsel Services (Lauren 
V. Jacobs also present) for the defendant. 
 
Bethany C. Lynch, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
The following submitted briefs for amici curiae: 
 
Jessica Lewis & Joshua M. Daniels for American Civil 
Liberties Union of Massachusetts & another. 
 
Andrew Shear, Hannah Freedman, & Natalie Baker, of New 
York, Stephanie Roberts Hartung, John P. Bueker, & Scott S. 
Taylor for Innocence Project, Inc., & another. 
2 
 
 
Martin W. Healy, Thomas J. Carey, Jr., & Donna Jalbert 
Patalano for Massachusetts Bar Association. 
 
 
LOWY, J.  When he was arrested for the murder of Pernell 
Kimplin, the defendant Elvio Marrero had with him a distinctive 
black leather jacket.  Police testing discovered blood inside 
the sleeves of the jacket, and, due to the small quantity of 
blood, the forensic tests performed could not exclude the victim 
as a source of that blood. 
At trial, numerous witnesses testified that they saw the 
defendant wearing the jacket on the day of the murder.  
Crucially, the first witness that interacted with the defendant 
after the victim's death testified that she saw the defendant 
with blood on his hands and arms, wearing that same jacket.  In 
its closing argument, the Commonwealth linked the bloodstains on 
the jacket to her testimony, and urged the jury to conclude that 
the blood was the victim's.  A conviction followed, which we 
affirmed in Commonwealth v. Marrero, 427 Mass. 65, 65 (1998). 
Twenty years after the trial, however, the connection the 
prosecutor argued in closing was disproved:  postconviction 
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing definitively excluded the 
victim as a source of the blood on the defendant's jacket.  The 
defendant's motion for a new trial on that basis was denied, and 
a single justice in the county court granted leave to appeal. 
3 
 
Because the blood on the jacket was the strongest physical 
evidence tying the defendant to the murder, and because the 
Commonwealth used it to corroborate the testimony of a vital 
witness with credibility issues, we conclude that it was a real 
factor in the jury's deliberations.  Consequently, had the new 
test results been admitted in evidence, and the Commonwealth 
been unable to connect the bloodstains to the murder, there is a 
substantial risk that the outcome of the trial would have been 
different.  We therefore vacate the defendant's conviction and 
remand for a new trial. 
Background.  The victim was found bound and stabbed to 
death in his apartment in Greenfield on October 16, 1994.  The 
defendant, who regularly sold drugs to the victim, was known to 
carry a knife and had a history of violence.  The police 
investigation focused on him after interviews with several of 
the defendant's other drug customers placed the defendant at the 
victim's apartment at the time of the killing. 
To assess the possible effect of the new analysis on the 
jury, we examine the evidence introduced at trial and consider 
how it factored into the arguments made by the prosecution and 
defense. 
1.  Commonwealth's case.  The medical examiner opined that 
the victim died on or about October 14, 1994; the Commonwealth 
therefore relied on a series of witnesses to establish a 
4 
 
timeline of the defendant's whereabouts and place him at the 
victim's apartment on that date. 
Jerry Desbiens -- who, like the victim, regularly acquired 
drugs from the defendant -- testified that, on October 13, the 
defendant had asked the victim if he could stay at the victim's 
apartment that night, and that the victim agreed and gave the 
defendant a key.  Later that day, Desbiens drove the defendant, 
who was wearing a black leather jacket, to the victim's 
apartment. 
 
The victim's friend, David Prest, visited the victim's 
apartment that night from 10:30 P.M. to about 11:45 P.M. or 12 
A.M.  Prest saw the defendant lying on a mattress, seemingly 
asleep.  When Prest departed, the defendant and the victim were 
alone.  That was the last time any witness saw the victim alive. 
Lynn Morehouse, another customer of the defendant, 
testified that the defendant crawled through her apartment 
window at around 2 A.M. on October 14.  He was pacing, nervous, 
and afraid, and he repeatedly asked her to go next door to ask 
Desbiens to give him a ride.  She refused.  Morehouse also 
testified that the defendant wore a black leather jacket and, 
crucially, that he had dried blood on his hands and arms. 
Another customer of the defendant, David Lucas, testified 
that the defendant came to his apartment sometime between 6 A.M. 
and 8 A.M.  The defendant told Lucas and Charles Johnson, who 
5 
 
was also present, that police were after him.  The defendant 
appeared extremely nervous and excited, and he was wearing the 
black leather jacket that "[he wore] all the time," according to 
Lucas.  Lucas also testified that he and Johnson took the 
defendant to Desbiens's house to see whether Desbiens would give 
the defendant a ride in exchange for cocaine. 
Desbiens agreed and gave the defendant a one-half hour long 
ride to Chicopee at around 10:30 A.M.  According to Desbiens, 
during the ride the defendant confided that he had been hit in 
the head, and that the police were chasing him.  Desbiens again 
testified that the defendant wore a black leather jacket. 
Finally, another witness, Isidro Herrera, testified that he 
gave the defendant a roundtrip ride between Holyoke and Chicopee 
at around noon, although he could not remember the specific day.  
According to Herrera, the defendant confided that he had killed 
someone with a knife, police were chasing him, and he needed 
money to fly to the Dominican Republic.1 
These testimonial accounts were vital to the Commonwealth's 
case, as there was minimal physical evidence implicating the 
defendant.  We described the crime scene in the defendant's 
direct appeal: 
 
1 We note that, as damning as Herrera's testimony looks on 
the page, the prosecutor did not refer to him at all in closing 
argument. 
6 
 
"The victim, Pernell R. Kimplin, was found dead in his 
apartment in Greenfield on October 16, 1994.  He was 
gagged, and his hands and feet were 'hog-tied' with 
electrical cords and rope.  He had been stabbed once in the 
chest and once in the back.  He also had been beaten about 
his head, neck, shoulders, and back with a wooden board 
broken from a dresser drawer.  The medical examiner opined 
that the victim died on or about October 14, 1994, as a 
result of the stab wounds." 
 
Marrero, 427 Mass. at 66.  Blood samples recovered from the 
victim's kitchen, living room, threshold, and door were tested 
and compared to the blood of the defendant and the victim.2  The 
Commonwealth's chemist testified that she attempted to perform 
six different tests on the samples, but that three of those 
tests could not yield conclusive results -- one because she 
could not accurately obtain a baseline sample from the victim, 
and two because the victim and defendant shared certain blood 
subtypes, which meant that the tests would not discriminate 
between the two men. 
For most of the approximately twenty samples, the chemist 
testified that the defendant was excluded as a source.  However, 
she testified that she could not exclude the defendant as the 
source from four of the samples, because those samples could 
only be subjected to the inconclusive tests. 
 
2 Police also recovered a knife from the apartment, and the 
Commonwealth's expert testified that human tissue on the blade 
was from the victim. 
 
7 
 
Similar results were obtained from forensic examination of 
the defendant's black leather jacket, which was seized from him 
upon his arrest.3  Blood was detected on the inner sleeves and a 
back panel of the jacket, but due to the small quantity, testing 
at the time could not determine whose blood it was.  
Nevertheless, at closing, the Commonwealth invited the jury to 
infer that the blood was the victim's and explicitly argued that 
the results corroborated Morehouse's testimony: 
"[The forensic expert] talked about that test resulting in 
a positive for the presence of blood, and the presence of 
blood in the front of that jacket was in each and every 
quadrant, top and bottom; in the area -- well, on the top 
two quadrants of the sleeves, inside.  And isn't that 
consistent with a person who had bloody hands and then put 
that jacket on, and the contact would be to the interior 
areas of that jacket?  And that corroborates . . . 
Morehouse's testimony." 
 
Finally, investigators matched fingerprints from the 
victim's apartment to two other individuals.4  A fingerprint 
matching the defendant was found on the underside of a folding 
chair, beneath a trash bag and laundry basket.  And a 
fingerprint matching Johnson was recovered from the overturned 
 
3 On February 12, 1995, the defendant flew from the 
Dominican Republic to the John F. Kennedy International (JFK) 
Airport in New York, where he was arrested pursuant to a 
Massachusetts warrant.  With him was his black leather jacket.  
During his interview with authorities at the airport, the 
defendant was evasive and at times untruthful; the Commonwealth 
argued this as consciousness of guilt. 
 
4 Police also collected fingerprints from Morehouse's 
apartment, none of which belonged to the defendant. 
8 
 
television that was the source of a cord used to tie up the 
victim. 
2.  Defense theories.  In addition to attempting to induce 
reasonable doubt by attacking the credibility of the 
Commonwealth's witnesses -- a topic we discuss in further depth 
infra -- the defense advanced two main theories:  third-party 
culprit and alibi.  Johnson's fingerprint was a keystone of the 
former.  The defense argued that the victim was killed by either 
Johnson or Lucas (or both acting in concert), pointing not only 
to the fingerprint but also to evidence of motive:  Johnson and 
Lucas both sold drugs to the victim, and both had made several 
aggressive attempts to collect money from the victim, including 
assaulting him.  There was also testimony that Johnson had a key 
to the victim's apartment. 
In addition to arguing that Johnson or Lucas killed the 
victim, the defendant also argued alibi:  he claimed that he was 
out of the country at the alleged time of death.  The foundation 
of this defense was a flight record produced midtrial, which an 
airline employee testified showed that (1) a reservation was 
made on October 13 through a travel agency with a telephone 
number with a western Massachusetts area code, and (2) on 
October 14 an "E. Marrero" checked in at John F. Kennedy 
International Airport in New York at 5:19 A.M. and boarded a 
7 A.M. flight to the Dominican Republic. 
9 
 
These times directly contradicted the testimony of Lucas 
and Desbiens, which was that they had interacted with the 
defendant as late as 8 A.M. and 10:30 A.M. on October 14, 
respectively.  The defense argued that the flight record also 
cast doubt on whether the defendant could have been in 
Morehouse's apartment at 2 A.M. 
In rebuttal, the Commonwealth argued that another "E. 
Marrero" had taken the flight5 or, alternatively, that the 
defendant made the reservation and had someone else take the 
flight.6 
3.  Verdict and posttrial events.  The jury convicted the 
defendant of murder in the first degree on the theories of 
premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty.  We affirmed the 
conviction in Marrero, 427 Mass. at 65.  In 2002, the defendant 
filed his first motion for a new trial, which was denied, and in 
 
5 In support of this point the Commonwealth called in 
rebuttal a record keeper from the telephone company serving New 
York City, who testified that the directories for the Bronx and 
Queens contained a combined twenty-six listings for individuals 
named "E. Marrero." 
 
6 In support of this point, the Commonwealth called in 
rebuttal the owner of a travel agency in Springfield that the 
defendant was known to use.  His equivocal testimony was only 
that he had no internal record of the reservation in question, 
but that he would not expect to, given his record-keeping 
practices. 
10 
 
2011, his motion for DNA testing pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 
30 (c), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001), was also denied. 
In 2017 a second motion for DNA testing, this one made 
under G. L. c. 287A, was granted.  The resulting DNA tests 
excluded the victim as a source of DNA from the blood found on 
the defendant's jacket,7 prompting the defendant to file the 2020 
motion for a new trial that is the subject of this appeal.  A 
Superior Court judge denied the motion, and a single justice in 
the county court allowed the defendant's G. L. c. 278, § 33E, 
"gatekeeper" petition for leave to appeal. 
Discussion.8  Where, as here, a motion for a new trial is 
premised on "newly available analysis that would remove from the 
jury's consideration evidence admitted at trial in the 
Commonwealth's case, . . . we ask whether the inculpatory 
evidence likely was a 'real factor' in the jury's deliberations 
such that its elimination would cast real doubt on the justice 
of the defendant's conviction" (quotation omitted).  
 
7 The testing also excluded the defendant as a source of 
blood samples recovered from the victim's apartment, and showed 
partial DNA profile matches with the victim. 
 
8 In his motion for a new trial and again on appeal, the 
defendant advances multiple arguments, including that the 
prosecution failed to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence 
related to the flight record.  As we determine that the results 
of the postconviction testing on the defendant's jacket are 
sufficient to require a new trial, we confine our discussion to 
that issue. 
11 
 
Commonwealth v. Cowels, 470 Mass. 607, 618 (2015).  See Mass. R. 
Crim. P. 30 (b), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001).  Because 
the motion judge was not the trial judge and took no evidence on 
this issue, our review is de novo.  See Commonwealth v. Mazza, 
484 Mass. 539, 547 (2020). 
We have ordered a new trial in two cases involving murder 
in the first degree under circumstances closely paralleling 
those in the instant case.  In Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 469 
Mass. 340 (2014), the Commonwealth's key percipient witness 
identified a purple jacket as the same one the defendant was 
wearing during the killing, and the Commonwealth offered expert 
testimony that the jacket tested positive for blood on both 
cuffs.  Id. at 345.  The key witness's credibility was 
challenged by extensive testimony from defense witnesses, which 
suggested a third-party culprit.  Id. at 346-348.  In closing, 
the prosecutor argued that the jury should credit her account 
that the defendant was the killer, because the blood on the 
jacket corroborated her testimony.  Id. at 349.  Postconviction 
testing revealed that the victim's blood was not present.  Id. 
at 340-341. 
In Cowels, 470 Mass. at 607-608, the Commonwealth 
introduced two bloodied towels at trial.  The forensic testing 
available at that time was inconclusive:  neither the defendants 
nor the victim could be identified or excluded as the source of 
12 
 
the blood.  Id. at 608.  The Commonwealth's star witness 
testified that the defendants used his bathroom to clean 
themselves after killing the victim, and, after "his credibility 
was extensively impeached during cross-examination," the 
Commonwealth argued in closing that the towels, which were 
recovered from the witness's bathroom, corroborated his 
testimony.  Id. at 609-610.  Postconviction testing on one of 
the towels, however, was able to definitively exclude both 
defendants and the victim as possible sources of the blood.  Id. 
at 608. 
In both Sullivan and Cowels, we identified the same two 
factors that were central to our evaluation of the evidence 
affected by the new test results, and thus central to our 
decision to grant a new trial.  The first was that the physical 
evidence at issue was critical to the Commonwealth's case 
because of a paucity of other physical evidence connecting the 
defendants to the killings.  See Cowels, 470 Mass. at 619 ("The 
only physical evidence that the Commonwealth offered linking the 
defendants to the crime was the towels, Cowels's sneaker, and 
the vaginal swab"); Sullivan, 469 Mass. at 352 (pieces of 
evidence negated by testing were important "because they served 
as the sole pieces of physical evidence indicating the defendant 
had been in the presence of the victim during the killing").  
The second, related factor was that in each case the 
13 
 
Commonwealth had used the physical evidence in question to 
corroborate the testimony of a key, but embattled, witness.  See 
Cowels, supra at 620 ("Here, the towels were the only physical 
evidence corroborating a key element of an important prosecution 
witness's testimony, and functioned to reinforce [witness's] 
severely challenged credibility"); Sullivan, supra at 353 ("the 
evidence was probably a real factor in the jury's deliberations 
because it was one of the pieces of physical evidence that the 
prosecution pointed to more than once in closing as a basis on 
which to credit [Commonwealth witness's] testimony over that of 
[defense witness]"). 
Both factors are present in the instant case.  The 
bloodstains on the jacket were the most vital piece of physical 
evidence offered by the Commonwealth.  Although there was 
extensive testimony as to the state of the crime scene and 
results of various forensic tests, no other physical evidence 
directly implicated the defendant.9  See Sullivan, 469 Mass. at 
 
9 We acknowledge that investigators found the defendant's 
fingerprint on the bottom of a chair located in the victim's 
apartment.  However, there was no dispute that the defendant had 
been in the apartment, and the print was recovered from the 
underside of a chair that was itself located under other 
household objects.  Moreover, the other single fingerprint 
recovered from the apartment, Johnson's, was found on an 
overturned television -- the same television from which a cord 
had been torn and used to bind the victim -- supporting the 
defendant's third-party culprit theory.  Thus, although the 
presence of the fingerprint precludes us from saying that the 
bloodstains on the jacket were the only physical evidence 
14 
 
353 ("Without the purple jacket, the defendant could have argued 
at closing that not one piece of physical evidence linked the 
defendant directly to the killing of the victim").  Of all the 
physical evidence, only the bloodied jacket allowed the 
Commonwealth to argue that the defendant was in the victim's 
apartment, at the time of the killing, with the victim's blood 
on his hands.  See id.  Contrast Commonwealth v. Duguay, 492 
Mass. 520, 534 (2023) (new test results did not merit new trial 
where "there were numerous other pieces of physical evidence 
. . . that would still link the defendant to the murder"). 
In addition to arguing for the jury to infer that the blood 
on the jacket was the victim's, the Commonwealth also used the 
bloodstained jacket to buttress the testimony of Morehouse.  
Morehouse was an important witness.  Her testimony was the first 
account of the defendant after the killing, and the vivid 
content of that testimony -- him desperately stealing into her 
apartment with bloody hands -- was the most inculpatory 
eyewitness testimony at trial.10 
 
connecting the defendant to the crime, we have no problem 
concluding that the bloodstains were key to the Commonwealth's 
case in a way the fingerprint was not.  See Sullivan, 469 Mass. 
at 352-353 (highlighting importance of defendant's bloody jacket 
where "physical evidence also tied [the prosecution's key 
witness] to the killings, including his bloody fingerprint on 
the inside passenger side of the defendant's car"). 
 
10 Her testimony of seeing the defendant in her apartment at 
2 A.M. on October 14 was also the only account from that day 
15 
 
And as with the key witnesses in Sullivan and Cowels, 
Morehouse suffered from credibility issues.  The jury learned 
that, at her first interview with police, she denied seeing the 
defendant with the victim on October 13 at all, and denied 
seeing the defendant the next morning.  She also admitted to 
drug use, and to calling the police on the defendant multiple 
times.  See Cowels, 470 Mass. at 619 (key prosecution witness 
was, "[i]n the prosecutor's own words, . . . 'a junkie' with a 
'checkered background' and a 'long criminal record,'" had given 
contradicting accounts to police, and had motive to implicate 
defendant).  Where the prosecutor argued to the jury that the 
blood on the jacket corroborated her testimony, the newly 
available analysis is not merely impeachment evidence, but 
rather "negates a key piece of physical evidence that the 
prosecution relied on in arguing that the jury should credit 
[Morehouse's] testimony."  Sullivan, 469 Mass. at 352. 
"We acknowledge, as did the motion judge, that much of the 
evidence the Commonwealth presented against the defendant 
remains, and that the Commonwealth may have been able to carry 
its burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant 
committed murder in the first degree even without the evidence 
 
that could theoretically be reconciled with the flight record, 
which, if credited by the jury, placed the defendant at the 
check-in counter at JFK Airport at 5:19 A.M. 
16 
 
of the [leather] jacket."  Sullivan, 469 Mass. at 353.  We 
further acknowledge that, viewing the evidence as a whole, this 
case presents a closer question than Sullivan or Cowels.  But 
ultimately, "our inquiry is not whether the verdict may have 
been different, but whether the evidence in question probably 
served as a real factor in the jury's deliberations."  Sullivan, 
supra.  Where the bloodstained jacket was the most important 
piece of physical evidence offered to connect the defendant to 
the crime, and where the prosecutor further used the jacket to 
corroborate the most important testimonial evidence -- evidence 
given by a witness with credibility issues -- we conclude that 
the bloodstains likely were a real factor in the jury's 
deliberations.  We do not opine on the defendant's guilt or 
innocence, but we are bound to ensure that such guilt or 
innocence is determined justly.  Accordingly, a new trial is 
required.  See Cowels, 470 Mass. at 623. 
Conclusion.  The judgment of conviction is vacated and set 
aside, and the matter is remanded to the Superior Court for a 
new trial. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.