Case Title: Commonwealth v. Dunn

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-11502

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2017-10-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-11502 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  WILLIAM DUNN. 
 
 
 
Norfolk.     May 5, 2017. - October 12, 2017. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Lenk, Hines, Gaziano, & Cypher, JJ.1 
 
 
Homicide.  Armed Assault with Intent to Murder.  Insanity.  
Evidence, Insanity, Expert opinion, Credibility of witness.  
Witness, Expert, Credibility.  Practice, Criminal, Capital 
case, Mistrial, Verdict, Instructions to jury. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on January 15, 2008. 
 
 
The cases were tried before Kenneth J. Fishman, J. 
 
 
 
Alan Jay Black for the defendant. 
 
Tracey A. Cusick, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
GANTS, C.J.  On November 2, 2007, the defendant struck 
Robert Moore multiple times with a baseball bat in the basement 
of Moore's home, killing him, and then attacked his daughter-in-
law, Nancy Moore, with the baseball bat and a shod foot when she 
                                                          
 
 
1 Justice Hines participated in the deliberation on this 
case prior to her retirement. 
2 
 
 
went downstairs to look for him, nearly killing her.  A Superior 
Court jury convicted the defendant of murder in the first degree 
on the theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty for his killing of 
Robert,2 and of various indictments for his brutal attack of 
Nancy, including armed assault with the intent to murder.3  The 
issue at trial was not whether the defendant committed these 
acts; his attorney admitted that he did so in his opening 
statement.  The issue was whether the Commonwealth proved beyond 
a reasonable doubt that he was criminally responsible for his 
actions. 
 
The defendant presents five claims on appeal:  (1) that the 
trial judge abused his discretion in denying a motion for a 
mistrial after the Commonwealth's expert witness commented on 
the credibility of the defendant or the defendant's expert 
witness; (2) that the conviction of armed assault with the 
intent to murder should be reduced to assault with the intent to 
murder because that is how the verdict slip characterized the 
indictment; (3) that the judge's instruction to the jury 
describing what would happen if the jury found the defendant not 
guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility created a 
                                                          
 
 
2 We refer to each member of the Moore family by his or her 
first name to avoid confusion. 
 
 
3 The defendant also was found guilty on indictments 
charging mayhem, assault with intent to maim, assault and 
battery with a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery causing 
serious bodily injury. 
3 
 
 
substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice; (4) that the 
absence of a jury instruction regarding the effects of drugs on 
the defendant's criminal responsibility created a substantial 
likelihood of a miscarriage of justice; and (5) that we should 
exercise our authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to grant the 
defendant a new trial or reduce his conviction of murder in the 
first degree to murder in the second degree or manslaughter 
because the verdict was not consonant with justice.  We affirm 
the defendant's convictions and conclude that the defendant is 
not entitled to relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E. 
 
Background.  Because the defendant contends that the murder 
verdict was not consonant with justice, we describe the evidence 
at trial in some detail, focusing on the evidence regarding the 
defendant's criminal responsibility. 
 
1.  Evidence of the crime.  The defendant worked as a 
foreman at a small irrigation company that installs landscape 
irrigation systems for homes and small commercial properties.  
As foreman, his job was to design the irrigation system to be 
installed at the customer's property and to install it.  On the 
morning of the events at issue, the defendant was the foreman 
for the installation of an irrigation system at Robert's home in 
Needham.  The defendant arrived early to design the installation 
and later was joined by a fellow employee, Steven Erickson, who 
assisted the defendant with the installation, which involved 
4 
 
 
laying the piping for the system and installing heads, valves, a 
control clock, and a timer.  When Erickson arrived, driving the 
company's truck, the defendant was planting fluorescent flags in 
the backyard to "stake out" the irrigation system.  Erickson 
testified that there was nothing unusual about his conversation 
with the defendant that morning.  When the defendant and 
Erickson took a break, Robert came to the back yard to bring 
them cookies and milk.  Moore's grandson, James, was also there, 
painting the side of the house. 
 
Around mid-morning, Michael White, the coowner of the 
irrigation company, came to the site to check on the progress of 
the installation.  The defendant and Erickson had completed 
about eighty per cent of the job by the time White arrived.  
White testified that the defendant "appeared fine" and was not 
acting bizarrely or unusually.  White also said that Robert was 
joking with the men about how he should have just painted his 
lawn green.  White did not stay long and left sometime between 
11 and 11:30 A.M. 
 
One of the final remaining tasks was the installation of 
the irrigation system's control clock and timer inside the home.  
Erickson usually installed the device, but on this occasion the 
defendant wanted to perform the job.  Robert opened the bulkhead 
door to the cellar so that the defendant could enter the home 
and install the control clock and timer.  The installation 
5 
 
 
usually took around fifteen minutes, but Erickson noted that it 
seemed to be taking the defendant "quite a while" to install the 
control clock, so he knocked on the bulkhead door.  The 
defendant answered but did not open the door. 
 
At 11:23 A.M., Robert telephoned his son from his home 
number in the kitchen and asked for the name of the "head guy" 
of the irrigation company.  Robert's son had recommended the 
company to his father, but he could not recall the name of the 
owner when speaking with his father that morning.  A person 
speaking from the kitchen on the first floor could be heard by a 
person in the basement, but there was no evidence confirming 
that the defendant heard what Robert had said in this telephone 
call.  A digital forensics State police officer testified that 
between 11:30 and 11:45 A.M., Robert's computer was used to 
perform search inquiries for different irrigation and lawn care 
Web sites.4 
 
At around noon, Erickson asked James to open the bulkhead 
door to see why the defendant was taking so long to install the 
control clock and timer.  James jogged through the house and 
into the cellar, where he passed the defendant, unlocked the 
                                                          
 
 
4 The defendant's close friend, Sean Clancy, did some work 
as a subcontractor for the irrigation company that employed the 
defendant.  In the spring or fall of 2007, the defendant was 
very angry that Clancy had spoken directly with Michael White, 
one of the coowners, rather than use the defendant as the 
intermediary.  Clancy testified that the defendant "just did not 
want me to talk to Mike White." 
6 
 
 
bulkhead door, and continued outside; James did not see any 
blood in the cellar.  The defendant followed James outside.  
James described the defendant as "kind of irritated or agitated" 
after he came out of the cellar.  The defendant twice walked 
directly under the ladder James was working on, and asked, 
"Where is the old man?"  James replied that he did not know. 
 
Erickson said the defendant "looked normal" when he emerged 
from the cellar, but that he was "definitely sweating" and was 
"shoving rubber gloves down his pants"; the installation of the 
control clock and timer did not require the wearing of gloves.  
Erickson asked the defendant what he wanted for lunch, and 
Erickson left to travel to Dedham to purchase lunch. 
 
Nancy, James's mother, arrived at the home at around 12:30 
P.M.  She asked James whether he had seen his grandfather, and 
he said, "No."  Nancy looked through the home and noticed that 
the basement door was open.  She walked down the stairs to the 
cellar and saw the defendant, who asked her if he could use the 
bathroom.  When she turned to go back up the stairs to show him 
one, the defendant grabbed her with an arm around her neck and 
started punching her continuously in the head.  Nancy "tried to 
fight" and remembered "twisting around and just trying to fight, 
and . . . yelling."  The last thing she remembered before losing 
consciousness was seeing the defendant "stomping on [her] face." 
7 
 
 
 
James finished painting, put away his supplies, and went 
into the home to wash up.  While he was washing his hands, he 
heard a moaning sound coming from the basement.  When he reached 
the bottom of the stairs, he saw his mother lying face down, 
near a "bloody baseball bat," with so much blood in her hair and 
face that he did not recognize her.  He then saw his grandfather 
on the floor in the utility room of the basement, with a large 
open gash in his skull, lying in a pool of blood; a mop was in 
the pool of blood.  James, fearing for his life, grabbed the 
baseball bat, ran out of the house, and asked two women walking 
on the street to "call 911."  The defendant was standing in 
front of the house and asked James, "What do you want to call 
911 for?  We didn't do nothing."  The defendant "took off" as 
James tried to speak to the two women who were telephoning 911.  
One of the two women described the defendant's appearance as 
"very, very red and sweaty"; the other testified that the 
defendant looked "really dazed and confused."  Both of the women 
said that, after the defendant looked toward them, he ran away 
from the house, and they did not see him again. 
 
The State police canine unit responded to the emergency 
call at approximately 1 P.M., and quickly launched a search of 
the surrounding area.  At approximately 3:45 P.M., while 
searching through a marshy area near Route 128 and the commuter 
railroad, a State trooper came upon the defendant, who was 
8 
 
 
"[lying] in a depression in the ground" and had "pulled 
vegetation over himself so that he was partially obscured from 
view."  The defendant stood up as the trooper approached and, 
ignoring the trooper's commands, began to struggle with the 
canine, who had bitten him on the arm.  The defendant soon 
surrendered and was placed under arrest. 
 
As the defendant was being transported to the police 
station, helicopters hovered above, and the defendant asked, "Is 
this all over the news?"  A different officer testified that he 
overheard the defendant telling his wife on the telephone at the 
police station, "I'm in a heap of trouble here.  This is 
important." 
 
At the police station, the defendant waived his Miranda 
rights and agreed to speak with the police in a video-recorded 
interview.  He told the police that he "just blacked out," and 
had no recollection of the incident, or of entering or leaving 
the house. 
 
Nancy's injuries were severe.  She suffered a subgaleal 
hematoma and a "blowout fracture" to the orbital bone around her 
right eye.  According to the radiologist who treated her, these 
injuries were consistent with being stomped in the face or 
struck by a bat.  Weeks after the attack, Nancy suffered an 
acute stroke related to her injuries.  At the time of trial, she 
9 
 
 
continued to suffer memory loss and paralysis on the side of her 
face. 
 
A medical examiner concluded that Robert died as a result 
of blunt force trauma to the head, consistent with being struck 
by a blunt object; the pathologist said she had never seen such 
injuries caused by hands alone.  Robert also suffered several 
broken ribs as well as bruising and abrasions on his arms and 
legs.  The pathologist opined that Robert did not suffer an 
"instant death," and that "the actual physiologic cause" of 
death was "just a culmination of all the trauma that his head 
received." 
 
There was compelling evidence that the defendant had tried 
to clean the cellar after killing Robert.  A sweatshirt, paper 
towels with red-brown stains, and Robert's eyeglasses were found 
in a cardboard box in the basement.  Two mops with red-brown 
stains were near his body.  Testing that could reveal the 
presence of blood stains that cannot be seen by the human eye 
showed "transfer stains" on the floor and in the sink, 
indicating that blood had once been on those surfaces and that 
efforts had been made to remove them by cleaning.  The defendant 
apparently had cleaned up the blood on the floor so well that 
James did not see any blood when he jogged past to open the 
bulkhead door.  One rubber glove that belonged to the Moore 
family and had been in the basement was later found in the 
10 
 
 
company truck that Erickson had brought to the home; Robert's 
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was found on the glove.5  Testing 
revealed the presence of blood in the defendant's vehicle, which 
remained parked outside the home.  The keys to his vehicle and a 
drill he used to install the control clock and timer were never 
found. 
 
2.  Evidence regarding criminal responsibility.  It was 
undisputed at trial that the defendant was for many years a 
hardworking man, a good husband, and a devoted father to his 
three sons, especially his oldest son, who is autistic. 
 
When the defendant was fourteen, his sister, who suffered 
from schizophrenia, committed suicide by lighting herself on 
fire.6  The defendant since childhood has had a seizure disorder, 
which he managed with medication. 
 
In 2001, while an irrigation business that the defendant 
had started after leaving White's irrigation company (and which 
later failed) was facing significant financial difficulties, he 
began seeing a therapist, who prescribed him Klonopin to treat 
his anxiety.  His financial troubles did not end when the 
defendant returned to work at White's irrigation company.  At 
the time of the incidents on November 2, 2007, a lien had been 
                                                          
 
 
5 The other glove of the pair was missing from the basement 
and was never found. 
 
 
6 No expert at trial offered the opinion that the defendant 
suffered from schizophrenia. 
11 
 
 
placed on his home for failure to repay a loan and, as testified 
to by his wife, the family was living "week to week." 
 
The first indication of possible mental illness occurred at 
a Christmas dinner in 2006 with the defendant's extended family 
at his sister's house, when the defendant became so upset about 
a comment directed at his older son that he abruptly ordered his 
family to walk out of the dinner. 
 
His mental health problems became more apparent in the 
spring of 2007.  He told his close friend, Sean Clancy, that he 
had discovered "insider trading" on the Internet, and that there 
were two stock brokers who were aware that the defendant had 
uncovered their scheme, who "kn[e]w everything about" the 
defendant, and who "were [not] fooling around."  He told his 
wife that he had stumbled on a Web site he was not supposed to 
have found, and that people were "after him."  He said that 
these people were trying to kill him, and that they would also 
kill his wife and their children.  The defendant discussed his 
fears about these people with Clancy "every day."  At one point, 
Clancy discovered that the defendant had disassembled his entire 
home computer.  When Clancy asked why, the defendant responded, 
"I've got to find out where they're getting in."  His wife 
testified that the defendant thought he saw messages flashing 
across the screen of their television and on a bumper sticker on 
a vehicle that he saw on the highway. 
12 
 
 
 
On a few occasions in 2007, the defendant told his wife 
that people were following him.  One morning in July, 2007, the 
defendant was sitting with Clancy in Clancy's truck drinking 
coffee when a vehicle approached, and the defendant suddenly 
crouched down to the floor of the truck and began screaming at 
Clancy to drive away.  As the vehicle came close, Clancy 
realized the driver was an older woman, but the defendant had 
covered his face with his hands and then quickly left the truck.  
When Clancy tried to ask the defendant about the incident, he 
did not want to talk about it. 
 
The defendant was hospitalized after an incident that 
occurred at the end of August, 2007.  The defendant had come 
home from work "very anxious and scared," and insisted that 
someone had been following him.  When his son showed them a 
digital video disc (DVD) he had received from a neighbor about 
the Middle East, the defendant was convinced that the DVD 
contained a secret message.  When his wife tried to explain to 
him that he was not making any sense, he slapped her (which he 
had never done before), pushed her to the ground, and begged her 
to please listen to him, saying that the family had to watch the 
DVD or they would be killed.  He said that nobody could leave 
the house or use the telephone or Internet.  She managed to calm 
him down by agreeing to watch the DVD, and then she ran out of 
the house and telephoned 911 from a neighbor's home. 
13 
 
 
 
Paramedics arrived and transported the defendant to Norwood 
Hospital, but he walked away from the hospital and could not be 
found.  At 5 A.M. the next morning, Norwood police found him in 
a cemetery.  He was holding a rock in his hand and talking about 
plutonium that he claimed was buried in the cemetery and the 
dangers arising from the September 11, 2001, attack.  He was 
transferred to the secure psychiatric ward at Newton-Wellesley 
Hospital, where he was given a diagnosis of psychotic disorder 
not otherwise specified.  He spent five days in the ward, where 
he was prescribed an antipsychotic medication, in addition to 
Klonopin.  He was released from the hospital on September 5 and 
began receiving treatment from clinicians at Riverside Community 
Health Center.  As he adjusted to the new medication, his wife 
described him as "very foggy all the time . . . and almost 
childlike in a way."  He returned to work approximately two 
weeks after leaving the hospital. 
 
The defendant was hospitalized a second time after an 
incident that occurred in mid-October, 2007.  He had not slept 
for twenty-four hours, so his wife went to check on him in the 
middle of the night.  She found him in the kitchen, having 
removed all of their knives and laid them on the counter.  While 
she was on the telephone with the defendant's doctor, the 
defendant told her, "I took a fist full of pills."  She checked 
14 
 
 
his bottle of Klonopin and discovered that approximately thirty 
pills were missing.  She took him to Norwood Hospital.7 
 
At the hospital, the defendant told the doctors that he was 
doing well, but was drinking fourteen cups of coffee per day.  
The doctor who examined him noted in his report that the 
defendant's thought process was coherent with "[n]o looseness of 
association or flights of ideas."  The doctor's report stated 
"the patient believably denied any suicidal thoughts . . . the 
patient's thought content did not indicate any delusions, 
paranoia, or hallucinations," and the defendant was "very clear" 
in explaining that taking the pills was a "poor judgment call."  
The doctor noted that the defendant's wife did not feel he 
needed to be hospitalized and was not concerned about his safety 
at home.  The doctor recommended he decrease his coffee intake 
in order to improve his sleep and prescribed him an 
antidepressant that is particularly helpful for sleep.  He was 
released from Norwood Hospital on October 21.  The defendant 
returned to work the next week. 
 
The defendant's mental condition appeared to stabilize 
after his release from his second hospitalization.  On the 
weekend of October 27-28, the defendant and his wife took a trip 
to Providence, Rhode Island, for her birthday, and "he seemed 
                                                          
 
 
7 The medical records reflect the defendant's apparent 
overdose of Klonopin medication but make no mention of the 
removal of the knives onto the kitchen counter. 
15 
 
 
happier" and was not paranoid.  On November 1, the day before 
the incident, the defendant worked the entire day with White, 
doing winterizations.  White testified that the defendant bought 
him lunch and was "in a good mood."  White discussed with him 
the possibility of the defendant taking over White's irrigation 
business after White retired.  The defendant saw his therapist 
that day at Riverside Community Health Center, who reported that 
the defendant said he was "feeling much better and sleeping 
better" and seemed "much calmer and relaxed [and h]e is 
beginning to open up more and talk about himself." 
 
The defense presented two expert witnesses who offered 
testimony regarding the defendant's mental health.  Dr. Charles 
Carroll, director of forensic services at Bridgewater State 
Hospital (Bridgewater), opined that the defendant "has a major 
mental illness" and that "the central feature of his major 
mental illness is thinking that is not based in reality."  Dr. 
Carroll, however, spoke on the basis of his interactions with 
the defendant at Bridgewater, and did not complete a criminal 
responsibility evaluation because the defendant declined to 
participate in an evaluation.  Dr. Carroll's assessment was that 
the defendant was not "forthcoming" because of "non-reality-
based ideas, psychotic ideas that he had, that his family was in 
danger and that if he talked about the things that were on his 
mind that this would put his family in further danger, and he 
16 
 
 
was protecting his family by not talking."  In Dr. Carroll's 
opinion, it was unlikely that the defendant actually blacked out 
and did not remember what occurred on the day of the incident. 
 
Dr. Keith Ablow opined that the defendant was suffering 
"with both major depression and with psychotic disorder not 
otherwise specified" on the day of the alleged crimes.  He 
offered the opinion that the defendant could not distinguish 
right from wrong that day or conform his behavior to the 
requirements of the law.  In contrast with Dr. Carroll, Dr. 
Ablow's opinion was based in part on what the defendant told him 
about the defendant's thinking on the day of the killing:  that 
he recalled that Robert mentioned having retired from working 
for International Business Machines (IBM), that there was a 
terrible conflict between IBM and Hewlett-Packard Corporation, 
and that, as described in Dr. Ablow's notes, "Hewlett-Packard 
might be empowered as a corporation and that could change the 
balance of power in the world." 
 
The Commonwealth offered the expert testimony of Dr. Alison 
Fife in rebuttal.  Dr. Fife opined that the defendant had the 
capacity both to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct and 
to conform his conduct to the law on the day of the alleged 
crimes.  Although Dr. Fife agreed with Dr. Ablow's diagnosis 
that the defendant suffered from psychotic disorder not 
otherwise specified, she emphasized that "there are very 
17 
 
 
effective treatments for psychosis today" and a person with such 
disorders can exhibit free will.  Her conclusion was that the 
defendant's psychosis had been well treated with medication 
after his second hospitalization, that he showed no signs of 
psychosis or delusions on the day of the killing, and that it 
was not possible that he somehow "snap[ped] into" a delusional 
psychosis when he entered the cellar of the victim's home.  In 
reaching her opinion, she weighed heavily the therapist's 
assessment of the defendant during his visit on the day before 
the killing and the defendant's "level of organization" on the 
day of the killing, declaring that she knew from her experience 
that an individual actively suffering from psychosis "would not 
have been able to carry out those usual activities in that 
organized a fashion."  She also found significant the 
defendant's efforts to clean up the scene of the killing and to 
hide the victim in the utility room in the basement which, along 
with his attempted flight from the scene, suggested that the 
defendant appreciated the wrongfulness of what he had done and 
was capable of conforming his conduct to the law.  In addition, 
she found significant that he said nothing to the police about 
any delusions or the conspiracy he believed he was thwarting and 
instead told the police that he had "blacked out" and had no 
memory of the events, which she described as "a convenient and 
18 
 
 
often-repeated excuse for behavior" in the absence of a 
psychosis. 
 
Discussion.  1.  Dr. Fife's testimony regarding 
fabrication.  When asked whether her opinion was affected by the 
defendant's statements to Dr. Ablow that Robert's prior 
affiliation with IBM triggered the attack, Dr. Fife answered, 
"They don't necessarily affect it other than I think that 
they're fabricated."  After the defendant objected, the judge 
asked Dr. Fife to clarify whether she meant that the defendant's 
statements were fabricated or that Dr. Ablow's report was 
fabricated.  When she answered, "I'm not sure," the judge 
instructed the jury to "disregard the last response."  The 
prosecutor then reframed the question, and asked Dr. Fife to 
assume that the statements were made by the defendant to Dr. 
Ablow.  After the judge denied the defendant's objection to the 
question, Dr. Fife answered that she considered the statements 
in "that they were so far afield from anything that I had heard 
from the defendant."  The judge, on hearing this answer, sua 
sponte sustained the earlier objection and told the jury to 
disregard the response.  The defendant later moved for a 
mistrial, contending that Dr. Fife had deliberately "directly 
commented" on Dr. Ablow's credibility.  The judge denied the 
motion but immediately instructed the jury that they "are to 
disregard any testimony about the fabrication of statements" and 
19 
 
 
"may not consider any comments on the credibility of any other 
witness in this case," adding that the evaluation of witness 
credibility "will be ultimately your determination." 
 
The defendant claims that the judge abused his discretion 
in not granting a mistrial.  He did not.  The judge multiple 
times told the jury to disregard Dr. Fife's answers to these 
questions, and we presume that the jury complied with his 
direction.  See Commonwealth v. Alcantara, 471 Mass. 550, 556 
(2015), quoting Commonwealth v. Watkins, 425 Mass. 830, 840 
(1997).  The judge at sidebar said that he recognized that Dr. 
Fife was unwilling to accept the prosecutor's assumption that 
the defendant made these statements, either because she did not 
believe they were made or did not believe they were true, and he 
was going to cut off any further questions from the prosecutor 
on this subject to avoid the risk that Dr. Fife would tell the 
jury what the defendant had said to her regarding his commission 
of the offense.  See G. L. c. 233, § 23B (in criminal trial, "no 
statement made by a defendant therein subjected to psychiatric 
examination pursuant to [G. L. c. 123, §§ 15 or 16,] for the 
purposes of such examination or treatment shall be admissible in 
evidence against him on any issue other than that of his mental 
condition, nor shall it be admissible in evidence against him on 
that issue if such statement constitutes a confession of guilt 
of the crime charged"); Blaisdell v. Commonwealth, 372 Mass. 
20 
 
 
753, 763 (1977) (construing word "confession" in G. L. c. 233, 
§ 23B, "to include inculpatory statements constituting 
admissions short of a full acknowledgement of guilt").  The 
judge ably addressed this dilemma and avoided undue prejudice 
through his rulings and prompt instructions to the jury.  He 
acted well within his discretion in denying the defendant's 
motion for a mistrial. 
 
2.  The verdict slip error characterizing the armed assault 
with intent to murder indictment as assault with intent to 
murder.  The indictment charging the defendant with armed 
assault with the intent to murder was attached to the verdict 
slip, but the verdict itself asked the jury to find the 
defendant not guilty, not guilty by reason of lack of criminal 
responsibility, or guilty of "assault with intent to murder."  
After the jury returned their verdicts, the judge noted the 
error in the verdict slip and asked the defendant if he wished 
to object to the verdict on that indictment.  Defense counsel 
said he would like to take some time to think about it and, 
after a recess, moved to vacate the conviction because the 
verdict slip was missing the word "armed."  The judge denied the 
motion, concluding that the error was akin to a "scrivener's 
error."  He noted that the jury were instructed only as to armed 
assault with the intent to murder and that, when he went over 
21 
 
 
the verdict slip with them, he described the charge as armed 
assault with the intent to murder. 
 
The judge did not err in denying the motion.  We recognize 
that the long-standing general rule of law is that "[t]he only 
verdict which can be received and regarded, as a complete and 
valid verdict of a jury, upon which a judgment can be rendered, 
is an open and public verdict, given in and assented to, in open 
court, as the unanimous act of the jury, and affirmed and 
entered of record, in the presence and under the sanction of the 
court."  Commonwealth v. Harris, 23 Mass. App. Ct. 687, 692 
(1987), quoting Lawrence v. Stearns, 11 Pick. 501, 502 (1831).  
The strict application of this general rule is "a safeguard 
against mistakes, and to assure that the public has confidence 
in the administration of justice, . . . on occasion with the 
effect of defeating a jury's probable intent."  Commonwealth v. 
Andino, 34 Mass. App. Ct. 423, 426 (1993).  We also recognize 
that in similar circumstances the Appeals Court in Harris, supra 
at 689-693, held that the spoken verdict of assault with the 
intent to murder must stand even though the indictment charged 
armed assault with the intent to murder, the judge instructed 
only as to armed assault with the intent to murder, and the jury 
found the defendant guilty of a separate indictment of assault 
and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. 
22 
 
 
 
But the general rule is not without exception.  See 
Commonwealth v. McCarthy, 37 Mass. App. Ct. 113, 117 (1994) 
("This general rule has been applied strictly, but not without 
limit"); Andino, 34 Mass. App. Ct. at 426 ("[s]ome limits" to 
general rule "have been recognized").  In Harris, 23 Mass. App. 
Ct. at 693 n.9, where the general rule was applied, the Appeals 
Court declared that the jury's spoken verdict may not have been 
a mistake because "[i]t was open to the jury to find that the 
defendant had committed an unarmed assault on the victim 
immediately prior to the armed assault relied on by the 
prosecution to support the indictment."  In contrast, where it 
is certain that the jury intended to convict on the greater 
charge and where the evidence would not permit a guilty verdict 
on the lesser charge, the conviction of the greater offense has 
been allowed to stand despite the erroneous description of the 
charge in taking the verdict.  See McCarthy, supra at 118. 
 
Here, we have no doubt that the jury intended to convict 
the defendant of armed assault with the intent to murder rather 
than the lesser included offense of assault with the intent to 
murder.  The judge provided careful jury instructions, both 
orally and in writing, that made clear that the jury needed to 
find that the defendant was armed in order to convict on this 
indictment.  The judge did not provide the jury with a lesser 
included offense instruction, no doubt because the evidence did 
23 
 
 
not reasonably permit such an instruction; given Nancy's 
injuries, the jury could not reasonably have found the defendant 
guilty of assault with the intent to murder if the jury had not 
also found that the defendant was armed with a baseball bat or a 
shod foot.  The jury clearly found that the defendant was armed 
because they convicted the defendant of assault and battery with 
a dangerous weapon.  If there were any reasonable possibility 
that the jury intended the lesser verdict, we would give the 
defendant the benefit of the lesser conviction.  But there is no 
such reasonable possibility here. 
 
3.  The jury instruction explaining what happens if the 
jury were to find the defendant not guilty by reason of lack of  
criminal responsibility.  In his final instructions to the jury, 
the judge explained to the jury "what happens to a defendant if 
he is found not guilty by reason of lack of criminal 
responsibility."8  The defendant made no objection to this 
                                                          
 
 
8 The judge's instruction is set forth below: 
 
 
"I'm now going to instruct you on the consequences of 
a verdict of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal 
responsibility.  As I previously instructed, your decision 
should be based solely on the evidence and the law of this 
case without regard to the possible consequences of the 
verdicts.  You may not consider something -- you may not 
consider sentencing or punishment in reaching your 
verdicts.  However, I am going to tell you what happens to 
a defendant if he is found not guilty by reason of lack of 
criminal responsibility.  The Court may order the defendant 
to be hospitalized at a mental facility for a period of 
[forty] days for observations and examination.  During this 
24 
 
 
instruction.  On appeal, however, he claims that the judge erred 
in not making it more clear to the jury that, if they found the 
defendant not guilty by reason of lack of criminal 
responsibility, the defendant could be committed for the rest of 
his life, and this error created a substantial likelihood of a 
miscarriage of justice. 
 
In Commonwealth v. Chappell, 473 Mass. 191, 205 (2015), we 
determined that the model jury instruction about the 
consequences of a verdict of not guilty by reason of lack of 
criminal responsibility, which was derived from Commonwealth v. 
                                                                                                                                                                                           
observation period or within [sixty] days after a verdict 
of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, 
the District Attorney or other appropriate authorities may 
petition the Court to commit the defendant to a mental 
health facility or to Bridgewater State Hospital. 
 
 
"If the Court then concludes that the defendant is 
mentally ill and that his discharge would create a 
substantial likelihood of serious harm to himself or 
others, the Court may grant the petition and commit him to 
a proper mental health . . . facility or to Bridgewater 
State Hospital for six months.  Periodically the Court 
reviews the orders of commitment.  If the person is still 
suffering from a mental illness or defect and is still 
dangerous, he is kept in that facility and depending on his 
condition, the type of facility is considered. 
 
 
"If the person is no longer mentally ill and can 
resume mental life -- excuse me -- and can resume a normal 
life, he is later discharged.  The District Attorney must 
be notified of any hearing concerning whether the person 
may be released, and the District Attorney may be heard at 
any such hearing.  However, the final decision on whether 
to recommit or release the person is always made by the 
judge.  This is what happens if you find the defendant not 
guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility." 
25 
 
 
Mutina, 366 Mass. 810, 823 & n.12 (1975) (Mutina instruction), 
should be modified to inform the jury, "There is no limit to the 
number of such renewed orders of commitments as long as the 
defendant continues to be mentally ill and dangerous; if these 
conditions do continue, the defendant may remain committed for 
the duration of his [or her] life."  Chappell, supra at 205-206, 
209 (Appendix).  We declared that this addition to the Mutina 
instruction would better explain to the jury "what protection 
they and their fellow citizens will have if they conscientiously 
apply the law to the evidence and arrive at a verdict of not 
guilty by reason of [lack of criminal responsibility]."  Id. at 
206, quoting Mutina, supra at 821-822.  The defendant 
essentially claims that the judge erred in giving the Mutina 
instruction rather than the Chappell instruction. 
 
In Chappell, 473 Mass. at 205, although we provided a 
provisional jury instruction to be given in the future, we 
concluded that the judge did not err in giving the Mutina 
instruction.  The trial in this case occurred four years before 
our opinion in Chappell.  The judge here, like the judge in 
Chappell, did not err in giving the Mutina instruction that, at 
the time of trial, was the governing model jury instruction. 
 
4.  Absence of a jury instruction regarding the effects of 
drugs on the defendant's criminal responsibility.  In 
Commonwealth v. DiPadova, 460 Mass. 424, 435 (2011),  issued two 
26 
 
 
months before the trial in this case, we declared that, where 
the defendant's criminal responsibility was at issue and where 
there was evidence that the defendant had used drugs prior to 
the murder, "the defendant was entitled to an instruction 
informing the jury that, if his mental illness alone had caused 
him to lack criminal responsibility at the time of the murder, 
any drug use that increased or aggravated his condition did not 
negate his lack of criminal responsibility."  The defendant did 
not request such an instruction or object to its omission.  On 
appeal, however, he claims that the absence of such an 
instruction created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of 
justice. 
 
We conclude that the judge did not err in omitting this 
instruction.  There was no evidence at trial that the drugs 
prescribed to manage his mental illness "increased or aggravated 
his mental illness."  In the absence of such evidence, the 
defendant was not entitled to this instruction. 
 
5.  Review under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  Where a verdict of 
murder in the first degree is contrary to law or the weight of 
the evidence, or where it is otherwise not "consonant with 
justice," we have the authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to 
order a new trial or to direct the entry of a lesser degree of 
guilt.  See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Gould, 380 Mass. 672, 680 
(1980), quoting Commonwealth v. Davis, 380 Mass. 1, 15 n.20 
27 
 
 
(1980).  The defendant contends that we should exercise that 
authority in this case primarily because "[i]t is clear that the 
only motive for the killing is psychotic and paranoid delusions 
and ideations produced by the defendant's [documented] mental 
illness."  We recognize the profoundly perplexing nature of this 
killing:  a defendant whose psychosis with paranoid delusions 
appeared to be successfully managed by medication and who 
appeared to be able to function normally in accomplishing the 
complex task of designing and installing an irrigation system 
suddenly bludgeoned to death an elderly customer with a baseball 
bat in what appears to be an inexplicable rage.  But "the power 
of this court under § 33E is to be exercised with restraint," 
Gould, supra, and this case calls for such restraint because, 
after carefully reviewing the record in this case, we conclude 
that the verdict is not contrary to the weight of the evidence 
or otherwise not consonant with justice. 
 
The jury were entitled to credit Dr. Fife's expert opinion 
that the defendant had the capacity to appreciate the 
wrongfulness of his conduct, and there was compelling evidence 
in support of that opinion.  He took great care to clean up the 
scene of the crime after the killing and to move Robert's body 
to the utility closet; he assaulted and intended to kill Nancy 
when he thought that she would discover the crime; and he 
28 
 
 
immediately fled the scene in an attempt to avoid apprehension 
when he realized that James had found Nancy in the basement. 
 
The jury were also entitled to credit Dr. Fife's expert 
opinion that, despite the defendant's mental illness, he was 
capable of conforming his conduct to the law when he committed 
these brutal crimes, and there was substantial evidence in 
support of that opinion.  With the medication he was prescribed, 
he appeared to be fully functional during the weekend before the 
killing (when he traveled to Providence with his wife), on the 
day before the killing (when he spent the day working with his 
boss and saw his therapist), and on the day of the killing (when 
he designed and installed an irrigation system).  The jury 
reasonably could credit Dr. Fife's testimony that a person would 
not have this degree of functionality and then suddenly "snap 
into" a delusional psychosis when he went into the cellar to 
install the control clock and timer.  We cannot be certain what 
triggered the defendant's rage, but the Commonwealth need not 
establish the defendant's motive for the killing.  There was 
good reason to discredit the defendant's explanation for his 
conduct that he gave to Dr. Ablow, and the jury reasonably could 
have rejected Dr. Ablow's opinion to the extent it rested on 
this explanation. 
 
Conclusion.  We affirm the judgments of conviction and 
decline to exercise our authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to 
29 
 
 
order a new trial or to reduce the conviction of murder in the 
first degree. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.