Title: Commonwealth v. Brown

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 
volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical 
error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of 
Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 
Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-
1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 
 
SJC-13025 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  SHAQUILLE BROWN. 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     February 7, 2022. - July 7, 2022. 
 
Present:  Gaziano, Cypher, Wendlandt, & Georges, JJ. 
 
 
Homicide.  Firearms.  Identification.  Intent.  Evidence, 
Identification, Intent, Constructive possession, Grand jury 
proceedings.  Grand Jury.  Jury and Jurors.  Practice, 
Criminal, Indictment, Grand jury proceedings, Instructions 
to jury, Jury and jurors, Examination of jurors, Voir dire, 
Argument by prosecutor, Capital case. 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on September 18, 2017. 
 
A motion to dismiss was heard by Christine M. Roach, J., 
and the cases were tried before Michael D. Ricciuti, J. 
 
 
Elizabeth A. Billowitz for the defendant. 
Ian MacLean, Assistant District Attorney (David S. Bradley, 
Assistant District Attorney, also present) for the Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
GEORGES, J.  On the morning of June 28, 2017, Christopher 
Austin was shot in the left eye while walking to a subway 
station to get to his job at Logan International Airport.  He 
died from the wound several days later.  The defendant was 
2 
 
convicted of murder in the first degree, and the related charges 
of carrying a firearm without a license and possession of a 
firearm without a firearm identification (FID) card, for 
Austin's death. 
 
On appeal, the defendant argues that the evidence was 
insufficient to support his convictions.  He also challenges the 
denial of his motion to dismiss the indictments because the 
grand jury proceedings were impaired by the prosecutor's 
introduction of highly prejudicial evidence that had no 
probative value.  In addition, the defendant argues that the 
trial judge's instructions on eyewitness identification 
improperly suggested that witnesses had positively identified 
the defendant, where none of the witnesses was asked to (or did) 
identify him, and instead simply described the appearance of the 
man they saw fleeing the scene of the shooting; the defendant 
maintains that this diminished the Commonwealth's burden of 
proof.  He also argues that certain questions posed during voir 
dire of the venire yielded a jury who were biased in favor of 
the Commonwealth and that the prosecutor's closing argument was 
improper in a number of respects, as the prosecutor misstated 
the evidence, used language that was intended to inflame the 
jury, and improperly shifted the burden of proof to the 
defendant.  Finally, the defendant asks us to exercise our 
3 
 
extraordinary authority to grant relief under G. L. c. 278, 
§ 33E. 
 
Discerning no error warranting a new trial, and no reason 
to exercise our extraordinary authority under G. L. c. 278, 
§ 33E, to order a new trial or to reduce the degree of guilt, we 
affirm the convictions. 
 
1.  Background.  We recite the facts the jury could have 
found, viewing them in the light most favorable to the 
Commonwealth, and drawing any reasonable inferences therefrom.  
See Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 677-678 (1979). 
 
a.  The shooting.  On the morning of June 28, 2017, the 
victim left his mother's house to walk to the Massachusetts Bay 
Transportation Authority's (MBTA's) Ashmont Station to take the 
subway to his job at Logan International Airport.  En route, the 
victim stopped at a local grocery store.1  When he arrived, two 
men were sitting in a blue Honda Accord that was parked in front 
of the store.  One of the men, later identified as the 
defendant, got out on the passenger's side and stood next to the 
Accord while the victim completed his purchase inside. 
 
As the victim left the store and walked down Ashmont 
Street, the defendant bent down toward the Accord before getting 
back into the vehicle and closing the door.  Several minutes 
 
 
1 Many of the events inside and immediately outside the 
store were captured on the store's video surveillance footage. 
4 
 
later, as the victim continued walking east on Ashmont Street, 
the Accord pulled away from the curb and traveled in the same 
direction down the one-way street. 
 
Meanwhile, Barnett Harper, a neighborhood resident, was 
walking east on Ashmont Street.  Harper recalled that a man 
wearing a backpack, later identified as the victim, was walking 
a few paces ahead of him.  As they walked, a second man jogged 
from behind Harper and approached the victim.  That man was 
wearing saggy khaki pants and a lightweight jacket.  He was of 
medium build, was Black, and had a chipped or missing front 
tooth on the right.  When Harper reached his apartment building, 
he walked up two flights of stairs, while the two men stood 
outside, a few houses away, talking to each other. 
 
A few moments after entering his apartment, Harper heard 
what sounded like a gunshot.  After pausing for a brief period 
of reflection, Harper looked out his window, and then he stepped 
onto his porch.  He saw the man with the chipped tooth jogging 
west, in the direction of Washington Street.  Harper went 
downstairs and walked a few steps east on Ashmont Street, where 
he saw a man lying on the pavement with a gunshot wound to his 
left eye.  Harper called 911 at 9:57 A.M., and he stayed with 
the victim, who was still breathing, until emergency responders 
arrived.  Later, at the police station, Harper told officers 
that the man who ran from the scene was between five feet, six 
5 
 
inches and five feet, nine inches tall (he described the man as 
a little taller than himself but by no more than three inches), 
with a medium skin tone, and in his early twenties.2 
That morning, Conrad Gibson was sitting in his friend's 
living room, watching television, when he heard a gunshot.  He 
looked out the window and saw a Black male jog by wearing baggy, 
sagging pants that he pulled up as he was running.  Gibson also 
saw the legs of a person lying on the sidewalk, sticking out 
from behind a parked car.  Gibson told police that the running 
man had a medium build, was between five feet, six inches to 
five feet, eight inches tall, and was clutching his pants as he 
ran. 
 
b.  Investigation.  Within twenty minutes of the 911 call, 
Boston police officers arrived at the scene.  They searched the 
area for ballistics evidence, but recovered none.  The officers 
also knocked on the doors of nearby houses to try to locate 
anyone who might have seen or heard something relevant.  During 
this canvas of the neighborhood, police spoke with Harper, who 
agreed to go to the police station for an interview.  Police 
also obtained video surveillance footage from the grocery 
 
 
2 Harper later told the defendant's investigator that the 
man had been light skinned, approximately twenty-five years old, 
and approximately five feet, ten inches tall. 
6 
 
store's security camera, as well as from two nearby private 
homes. 
From the surveillance footage, police determined that the 
victim had entered the store approximately ten minutes before he 
was shot.  They identified the man in the footage as the victim 
because he appeared to be wearing the same hat and backpack that 
the victim was found wearing.  Police also used the surveillance 
footage to identify the owner of the blue Honda Accord as Marvin 
Smith.  When officers showed Smith the surveillance footage, 
Smith and his wife identified the men in the Accord as the 
defendant and Keith Cousin. 
Police then undertook to locate and arrest the two men.  On 
July 11, 2017, officers went to the defendant's mother's house 
in the Mattapan section of Boston.  They found the defendant in 
bed in a guest room that the defendant's mother rented out to 
friends and family members, and to which at least six or seven 
people outside her immediate family, both extended family and 
friends, had access at that point.  The defendant was partially 
dressed and was with his girlfriend, who had spent the night.  
Officers saw a pair of khaki pants hanging from an open drawer 
and the defendant's cell phone on a nightstand.  After the 
defendant was arrested (on an unrelated outstanding warrant), 
police obtained a search warrant to search the house.  When they 
executed the warrant, they found, among other things, a .38 
7 
 
caliber revolver on the floor of a closet, under a pile of other 
items, and rounds of nine millimeter and .38 caliber ammunition 
in a cloth drawstring bag in the defendant's girlfriend's purse.  
The firearm did not contain the defendant's fingerprints and was 
not tested for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence; the string 
on the drawstring bag contained a mix of DNA from at least four 
individuals that could not be used for matching with individual 
DNA profiles. 
 
2.  Discussion.  In this direct appeal from his convictions 
of murder in the first degree, carrying a firearm without a 
license, and possession of a firearm without an FID card, the 
defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient to establish 
his identification as the shooter and to prove deliberate 
premeditation and constructive possession of the firearm.  He 
also maintains that the motion judge, who was not the trial 
judge, erred in denying his motion to dismiss all of the 
indictments on the ground of impairment of the grand jury 
proceedings.  In addition, the defendant challenges the judge's 
instructions on eyewitness identification as improperly 
suggesting that witnesses had made a positive extrajudicial 
identification of the defendant, where the witnesses were never 
asked to identify him and simply described the appearance of the 
man they saw fleeing the scene moments after a shot was fired.  
The defendant argues that the instructions reduced the 
8 
 
Commonwealth's burden of proof by suggesting that the witnesses 
indeed had identified him. 
 
The defendant contends further that questions the 
prosecutor posed to the venire, intended to address the so-
called "CSI effect," resulted in a jury biased in favor of the 
Commonwealth.  The defendant also argues that numerous 
statements in the prosecutor's closing argument were improper, 
as they were not based on evidence before the jury, misstated 
the evidence, and were designed to appeal to the jury's emotions 
and to inflame their thinking, thus shifting the burden of proof 
toward the defendant.  The defendant also asks us to exercise 
our authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to grant him relief. 
 
We conclude that there was sufficient evidence for a 
rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty of all of 
the indicted offenses beyond a reasonable doubt.  Although the 
prosecutor did introduce before the grand jury highly 
prejudicial prior bad act evidence that had no probative value, 
there was sufficient other evidence to satisfy the probable 
cause standard under which the grand jury ultimately indicted 
the defendant, and thus no error in the denial of the 
defendant's motion to dismiss.  We also discern no abuse of 
discretion in the judge's decision not to instruct the jury on 
eyewitness identification using the specific language requested 
9 
 
by the defendant, and no error in the instructions given, which 
did not diminish the Commonwealth's burden of proof. 
 
We agree that the prosecutor's questions to the members of 
the venire attempting to account for the so-called CSI effect 
were not felicitously worded and would have been better asked in 
another form, as the attorneys for the defendant and his 
codefendant each requested, but the defendant has not shown that 
the empanelled jurors, all of whom responded in the negative to 
the question, were biased toward the Commonwealth.  With respect 
to the prosecutor's closing argument, most of the disputed 
statements constituted permissible enthusiastic rhetoric, rather 
than misstatements of the evidence.  Although certain of the 
statements were improper, the judge immediately gave a curative 
instruction, which sufficiently cured any prejudice.  In 
addition, we discern no reason to exercise our extraordinary 
authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to order a new trial or to 
reduce the degree of guilt.  Accordingly, we affirm the 
convictions. 
 
a.  Sufficiency of the evidence.  The defendant contends 
that the evidence before the jury was inadequate to support his 
conviction of murder in the first degree.  He maintains that the 
evidence was insufficient to establish his identity as the 
shooter or as having been present at the scene, that he acted 
10 
 
with deliberate premeditation, or that he constructively 
possessed the firearm used in the shooting. 
 
In determining whether the evidence was sufficient to 
support a conviction, a reviewing court considers "whether, 
after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 
prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the 
essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt" 
(citation omitted).  Latimore, 378 Mass. at 677.  
"Circumstantial evidence is sufficient to find someone guilty 
beyond a reasonable doubt[,] and inferences drawn from such 
circumstantial evidence 'need only be reasonable and possible; 
it need not be necessary or inescapable'" (citation omitted).  
Commonwealth v. Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 141 (2001).  "A 
conviction may not, however, be based on conjecture or on 
inference piled upon inference."  Commonwealth v. Jones, 477 
Mass. 307, 316 (2017). 
i.  Identification.  The defendant argues that there was 
insufficient evidence that he was the person Harper and Gibson 
observed in the moments immediately before and after the 
shooting, or that the man they saw was the person who shot the 
victim.  The defendant maintains that an extrajudicial 
eyewitness description of an individual observed near a crime 
scene, "in the absence of video of the scene or positive 
11 
 
eyewitness identification," provides "no probative 
identification evidence" for the jury. 
The defendant's reliance on Commonwealth v. Amado, 387 
Mass. 179, 188-189 (1982), in support of this proposition is 
misplaced.  In that case, prior to trial, the witness identified 
the defendant from a photograph, provided his nickname, and 
"associated" the nickname with the defendant.  Id.  Then, at 
trial, the victim denied that the defendant was the assailant.  
Id. at 188.  Contrasting that situation with circumstances where 
witnesses provide "inconsistent and contradictory" statements of 
identification in and outside court but there is at least one 
in-court identification of the defendant, "as well as other, 
less positive in-court references to the defendant[]," id., the 
court in Amado concluded that the latter situation merely 
created a credibility issue for the jury to decide, but that the 
former resulted in "no probative identification evidence for the 
jury" because the "probative value of the pretrial 
identification evidence is seriously impaired, if not negated, 
by the witness's own in-court testimony" that fails to identify 
the defendant.  Id. 
Here, there was no court room recanting of a prior 
extrajudicial identification.  The two witnesses consistently 
described the man they had seen to the extent they were able to 
see him; although their recollections did not change, they also 
12 
 
never said that, in the brief moment that the shooter ran past, 
they had seen his face sufficiently to be able to identify it, 
so the absence of identification testimony at trial did not 
negate any prior extrajudicial statements.  Moreover, there was 
positive identification of the defendant in the surveillance 
video footage, a few blocks from the scene of the shooting, 
approximately ten minutes before the shooting took place, by two 
witnesses who knew him.  The question thus was whether the later 
two witnesses, who each saw a man running on Ashmont Street, saw 
the same man.  See Commonwealth v. Vitello, 376 Mass. 426, 461 
(1978) ("an extrajudicial identification may in an appropriate 
case provide a jury with a sufficient basis upon which to find a 
defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"). 
 
Both witnesses testified that they saw a Black man of 
medium build, approximately five feet, six inches to five feet, 
eight inches tall, jogging west on Ashmont Street moments after 
they heard a single gunshot.  Harper, who saw the man from 
within two to three feet as he ran past, testified that the man 
had a chipped front tooth on the right side and a medium skin 
tone, and wore beige, baggy pants and a light jacket.  Gibson, 
who saw the man over a shorter period, through a window and from 
further away, recalled that he saw a Black man who was wearing 
baggy, sagging pants that he was pulling up as he ran.  Both 
witnesses described the man as approximately the same height and 
13 
 
testified that they saw no other people on the street after they 
heard the gunshot.  These observations all support the 
Commonwealth's view that the defendant was the person both 
witnesses saw. 
Moreover, the testimony by Harper and Gibson was not 
introduced in isolation.  Rather, the Commonwealth attempted to 
connect the person the witnesses saw near the scene with the 
defendant through the video surveillance footage taken several 
blocks away, approximately ten minutes before the gunshot, in 
which members of the defendant's family positively identified 
the defendant as the person depicted (and also identified the 
codefendant).  The surveillance footage shows the defendant 
first standing next to a blue Honda Accord, then heading toward 
the store window, and then getting back into the Accord and 
closing the door.  The video footage later shows the defendant 
and the other man, in the Accord, traveling down Ashmont Street, 
shortly after the victim is seen leaving the store.  The Accord 
is traveling in the same direction as the victim walked, less 
than two minutes after the victim left the grocery store.  This 
also was the direction from which, minutes later, Harper and 
Gibson heard a gunshot and then saw a person who resembled the 
defendant running in the direction of the store.  Video 
surveillance footage from a private home also showed a blue 
Honda Accord apparently traveling in the opposite direction, 
14 
 
back the way it had come, shortly after the shot was fired.  
Based on this evidence, the jury reasonably could have inferred 
that the defendant was the person both Harper and Gibson 
observed. 
Harper telephoned emergency responders at 9:57 A.M., 
minutes after he heard the shot and a moment after he saw the 
man lying on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound to his eye.  
Harper did not see any other pedestrians or vehicles on the 
street when he looked out the window and saw the man leaving the 
area, or after he came downstairs and saw the victim and 
attempted to render aid.  Harper estimated, however, that a few 
minutes had elapsed from the moment the shooting occurred, 
during which he was facing away from the road and was inside his 
house, and would not have had a clear view of the street.  At 
9:56:43 A.M., immediately prior to Harper's 911 call, 
surveillance footage from a house several blocks away from the 
store -- and several blocks closer to the scene -- showed a blue 
Honda Accord (the same make, model, and color as the vehicle 
seen in the store video surveillance footage), being driven away 
from the area of the shooting. 
This court has concluded that there was sufficient evidence 
to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt where witnesses 
observed a man "who generally matched the description of the 
defendant" running alone, away from the victim, "clutching 
15 
 
something in his pocket consistent with a firearm."  See Jones, 
477 Mass. at 316.  To support this conclusion, the court noted 
several connections between the "unidentified runner" and the 
defendant.  Id. at 317. 
 
The evidence implicating the defendant in this case is 
comparable.  As in Jones, multiple witnesses saw a person 
resembling the defendant, and wearing similar clothing to that 
which the defendant had been seen wearing approximately ten 
minutes earlier and a few blocks away, running from the location 
where the shooting took place, moments after the fatal shot.  
Where, in Jones, a witness placed the defendant in a park near 
the scene of the crime, here, the store's surveillance footage 
showed the defendant traveling toward the scene, from a few 
blocks away, several minutes before the shooting. 
As the defendant observes, "mere presence at the scene of a 
crime, without more, is not sufficient to support a conviction." 
Commonwealth v. Mazza, 399 Mass. 395, 399 (1987).  Here, 
however, there was more.  The evidence would have allowed a 
reasonable juror to find that a person resembling the defendant, 
wearing apparently the same clothing, was alone with the victim 
during the moments immediately before the shooting and 
immediately after; that the defendant had traveled toward the 
scene several minutes before the shot was fired; and that two 
witnesses saw no other pedestrians or vehicles on the street at 
16 
 
that time.  This is in contrast to the facts in Mazza, supra, 
where there was "no evidence that [the victim] was killed while 
the defendant was at the [crime scene]."  In sum, the evidence 
was sufficient for a rational juror to have found beyond a 
reasonable doubt that the defendant was the shooter. 
ii.  Premeditation.  To establish that a defendant acted 
with deliberate premeditation, the Commonwealth must prove that 
the defendant intended to kill, and that he or she acted with 
deliberation, after a period of reflection; the length of that 
period is undefined and could be no more than a few seconds.  
See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Coleman, 434 Mass. 165, 168 (2001).  
A jury may infer that a defendant acted with deliberate 
premeditation "from the nature and extent of a victim's 
injuries, the duration of the attack, the number of blows, and 
the use of various weapons."  See Commonwealth v. Whitaker, 460 
Mass. 409, 419 (2011). 
In this case, there was lay and medical evidence that the 
victim had been shot at close range through the eye.  Emergency 
medical technicians attempting to treat the victim at the scene 
noted signs of stippling on his face, indicating that the shot 
had been fired from only a few feet away.  Minutes before he 
heard the gunshot, a witness saw the victim standing and talking 
to a man whose physical characteristics matched the defendant's, 
and wearing clothes that appeared to match clothing the 
17 
 
defendant had been wearing less than ten minutes earlier.  The 
two men appeared to be talking calmly and in a friendly manner.  
No one else appeared to be outside on either side of the street. 
From this evidence, the jury reasonably could have inferred 
that the shooter, who had been talking to the victim as they 
stood near each other, decided to kill the victim, pulled out a 
gun, and shot him in the face at point-blank range.  This, in 
turn, was sufficient for the jury to have found that the shooter 
acted with deliberate intent to kill the victim; any reasonable 
person would know that shooting someone in the head at close 
range almost certainly would result in death, and there was no 
evidence of any kind of sudden combat or self-defense. 
iii.  Constructive possession.  The defendant also contends 
that the Commonwealth did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt 
that he constructively possessed the gun used to shoot the 
victim. 
As stated, police arrested the defendant at his mother's 
house approximately two weeks after the shooting.  They then 
obtained a search warrant and searched the house.  In the closet 
in the bedroom where the defendant was arrested (partially 
undressed and in bed with his girlfriend), police recovered a 
.38 caliber revolver from under a pile of items on the floor.  
They also found a cloth bag, of the kind in which bottles of 
whiskey are sold, in the girlfriend's purse; the bag contained 
18 
 
nine millimeter and .38 caliber ammunition.  The defendant's 
mother testified that the room where the gun was found was not 
the defendant's bedroom.  Rather, it was the defendant's 
brother's bedroom, where guests often slept.  According to the 
defendant's mother, "about six or seven people" had had access 
to the room and could have slept in it.  The closet had no lock 
and was full of "stuff."  The defendant's mother was renting the 
room to help pay her own rent.  She also said, however, that the 
defendant had been staying there for a "couple of nights," 
something he had done on other occasions; at other times in the 
summer of 2017, he had been staying with his girlfriend.  When 
the defendant came to visit for a few days, he never brought any 
clothing with him. 
As the defendant points out, no physical evidence tied him 
to the shooting, and no casings or projectiles tied the gun 
found in his mother's house to the victim; the prosecutor argued 
that the gun could have been the weapon, as it was a revolver 
and revolvers do not eject shell casings.  The defendant's 
fingerprints were not found on the firearm, the firearm was not 
tested for DNA, and the DNA on the bag containing the ammunition 
could not be used to provide a match to any suspect. 
Although people other than the defendant had had access to 
the bedroom that his mother rarely entered, the Commonwealth, in 
seeking to establish constructive possession, was not required 
19 
 
to prove that the defendant was the sole person who could have 
had access to the firearm.  The fact that the defendant slept in 
the room for days at a time and never brought clothes when he 
came to stay; the location of the gun under a pile of objects on 
the floor of the closet, suggesting knowledge of the room and 
selection of a convenient hiding place; and the ammunition found 
in his girlfriend's purse, along with the fact that the 
defendant was staying with her at least part of the time when he 
was not staying at his mother's, were sufficient evidence for 
the jury to have found that the defendant had knowledge of the 
firearm and the ability to exercise dominion and control over 
it. 
 
b.  Impairment of grand jury proceedings.  The defendant 
argues that the grand jury proceedings were fatally impaired by 
the prosecutor's misconduct, necessitating dismissal of the 
indictments.  Specifically, the defendant maintains that the 
prosecutor's introduction of a significant volume of highly 
prejudicial, yet irrelevant, character evidence improperly 
influenced the grand jury's decision to indict the defendant on 
the charges of which he ultimately was convicted. 
 
A defendant may be entitled to dismissal of an indictment 
if the integrity of the grand jury was impaired by a 
prosecutor's improper conduct in the introduction of certain 
evidence.  See Commonwealth v. Mayfield, 398 Mass. 615, 621 
20 
 
(1986).  To demonstrate that such impairment occurred, a 
defendant must establish that (1) the evidence was presented 
knowingly or with reckless disregard for its truth; (2) the 
evidence was presented with the purpose of obtaining an 
indictment; and (3) the improper evidence probably influenced 
the grand jury's decision to indict.  Id.  "Reckless disregard 
of the truth leading to the presentation of false or deceptive 
evidence could also warrant dismissal of an indictment."  Id.  
See Commonwealth v. Freeman, 407 Mass. 279, 283 (1990). 
In her May 25, 2018, ruling, the motion judge, who was not 
the trial judge, found that the prosecutor introduced the 
challenged records "in reckless disregard of their lack of 
probative value, compounded by their potential prejudicial 
effect, and that the records were presented with the intention 
of obtaining indictments."  She then determined that the other 
evidence, although circumstantial, was adequate to establish 
probable cause and the "identity of the accused," and thus that 
the evidence presented to the grand jury "was sufficiently 
inculpatory to relieve the Commonwealth of the adverse 
consequences that might otherwise flow from its conduct of the 
grand jury proceedings."  As a result, the motion judge found 
that the grand jury proceedings were not impaired by the 
prosecutor's deliberate misconduct. 
21 
 
When reviewing a motion judge's decision after an 
evidentiary hearing, this court will "accept the judge's 
subsidiary findings of fact absent clear error but conduct an 
independent review of his [or her] ultimate findings and 
conclusions of law" (citation omitted).  See Commonwealth v. 
Bartlett, 465 Mass. 112, 113, (2013).  See also Commonwealth v. 
Isaiah I., 448 Mass. 334, 337 (2007), S.C., 450 Mass. 818 (2008) 
("motion judge's findings of fact are binding in the absence of 
clear error" [citation omitted]). 
Here, as part of their investigation into the victim's 
death, Boston police attempted to discern the relationship 
between the two individuals they sought to indict:  the 
defendant and Cousin, the man who had been in the driver's seat 
of the Honda Accord when it was parked in front of the grocery 
store.3  Initial investigation had revealed that the defendant 
and Cousin had been incarcerated together at Souza-Baranowski 
Correctional Center during the same few months in 2016, a year 
before the shooting.  Prosecutors therefore issued a grand jury 
subpoena to the Department of Corrections (DOC) requesting all 
records pertaining to the incarceration of both the defendant 
 
 
3 As discussed in part 2.e, infra, shortly before closing 
argument, the indictments against Cousin were dismissed on his 
own motion, after the trial judge found insufficient evidence 
that Cousin "shared the intent to commit this crime." 
22 
 
and Cousin beginning on January 1, 2000 (when the defendant was 
five years old), through the date of issuance of the subpoena. 
The records the Commonwealth received from the DOC were 
voluminous.  They contained "disciplinary reports citing each 
[codefendant] for numerous allegations of disruptive behavior -- 
including violent assaults on other inmates, manufacture of 
weapons, and threats against staff members while incarcerated."  
Nowhere in the more than one hundred pages of records, however, 
was there evidence of any connection between the defendant and 
Cousin during their incarceration together.  As a result, the 
motion judge determined that the records had "no permissible 
probative value whatsoever."  When a grand juror, looking at the 
voluminous records, asked the prosecutor whether he could 
summarize what the records said about the relationship between 
the defendant and Cousin, the prosecutor first asked whether the 
grand juror had read the records.  After the juror responded 
that he had not, the prosecutor said that he would not be able 
to answer the question about summarizing the evidence.  The 
juror then asked whether the grand jurors therefore could 
"enjoy" the records by themselves, and the prosecutor responded, 
"You can enjoy it by yourselves as much as you like, yeah."  The 
motion judge rejected the Commonwealth's argument that because 
police had subpoenaed all of the DOC records related to each of 
the codefendants, the Commonwealth was obligated to present them 
23 
 
all to the grand jury; the judge also rejected the 
Commonwealth's argument that it was precluded from summarizing 
any of the documents for the grand jury. 
In addition to introduction of the DOC records, the 
prosecutor asked the defendant's girlfriend whether the 
defendant had ever called her from jail.  The prosecutor also 
asked another witness to tell the grand jury about how the 
defendant had chipped his front tooth, to which the witness 
replied that the defendant had recently been released from 
"Shirley."  The prosecutor gave no limiting instruction with 
respect to either of these statements.  The prosecutor also 
presented all of the jail call logs from the defendant's 
telephone calls after his arrest, through a Boston police 
officer.  Immediately after introducing the call logs, the 
officer testified that he only had listened to one of the calls 
and that it contained, as the judge reported, "nothing relevant 
to the investigation." 
In her decision, the motion judge stated that what had 
occurred before the grand jury was "the opposite of best 
practice."  She noted that "no thought appears to have been 
given at the beginning of the investigation to narrowing the 
subpoena to the [DOC], to focus more precisely on what the 
prosecution claims to have sought (and was allegedly unable to 
discover from another source):  evidence of a direct 
24 
 
relationship between [the defendant] and Cousin, during a time 
frame in which [the defendant] could reasonably have been 
expected to have been housed at a Massachusetts prison."  The 
judge agreed that there was "no dispute that a potential 
relationship between the two men was a legitimate area of 
investigation," but pointed out that "disciplined attention 
could well have been directed to which [DOC] documents (be they, 
for example, housing, discipline, or gang records) would have 
been more likely to contain that information."  The judge also 
noted that "there is a woeful lack of evidence on this record 
that any professional judgment was exercised once the subpoenaed 
records were received, to assess whether they were in fact 
probative of a relationship between the two men." 
The Commonwealth obtained the records on August 9, 2017, 
and they were produced to the grand jury on September 13, 2017.  
The judge pointed out that the police officer who introduced the 
records testified that he "had never read the [DOC] documents," 
and there was no explanation why he had not done so.  In 
addition, the judge noted that the "record is notably silent as 
to whether the prosecutor himself ever reviewed the [DOC] 
documents, to make any responsible assessment of their probative 
value -- and, if so, why he chose to submit those records to the 
grand jury without foundation, and through a witness entirely 
ignorant of their content."  The judge emphasized that "despite 
25 
 
the lack of assessment of probative value, there is no evidence 
that a qualified Commonwealth decision maker made any reasonable 
effort to weigh the fairness of offering -- to a grand jury 
assessing probable cause for joint venture first degree murder 
by shooting -- a set of highly inflammatory records 
demonstrating prior bad acts, proclivity to violence, and other 
general bad character of both [d]efendants." 
The motion judge's determination supports the defendant's 
contention that the prosecutor was reckless in introducing such 
improper, unfairly prejudicial, and irrelevant evidence to the 
grand jury in order to obtain an indictment against the 
defendant.  Indeed, the motion judge found no evidence that the 
prosecutor "made any responsible effort to weigh the fairness of 
offering . . . a set of highly inflammatory records 
demonstrating prior bad acts, proclivity to violence, and other 
general bad character of both [d]efendants."  Therefore, she 
concluded that the first and second elements of the Mayfield 
inquiry had been satisfied.  See Mayfield, 398 Mass. at 621. 
The third element of the Mayfield inquiry, however, asks 
whether the improper evidence probably influenced the grand 
jury's decision to indict.  In undertaking such an analysis, 
this court has considered how the improper evidence was placed 
before the grand jury.  Evidence submitted in response to a 
question by a grand juror, for example, is less problematic than 
26 
 
evidence submitted "by the prosecutor's design."  See 
Commonwealth v. Vinnie, 428 Mass. 161, 174-175, cert. denied, 
525 U.S. 1007 (1998).  In Vinnie, supra at 175, this court 
assessed the prejudicial impact of prior bad act evidence that 
had been introduced to the grand jury in order to obtain an 
indictment against the defendant.  Ultimately, the court 
concluded that the improper evidence "probably [did not] 
influence[] the grand jury's decision to indict," because there 
was substantial other evidence of probable cause.  In 
determining that the improper evidence likely had not had an 
impact on the grand jury's decision to indict, this court held 
that, "had there been less evidence incriminating Vinnie, [the 
improper evidence] could have led the grand jury to indict him 
improperly on the basis of his propensity to commit crime, 
rather than on the crime charged."  Id. 
Here, as there was less evidence incriminating the 
defendant than existed against the defendant in Vinnie, there 
was a concomitant greater likelihood that the improper evidence 
could have led the grand jury to "indict him improperly."  Id.  
For instance, there was no evidence of any prior relationship 
between the defendant and the victim, and no indication that 
they were aware of one another's existence before they 
encountered each other a few minutes before the shooting.  As a 
result, there also was no evidence of any previous hostility 
27 
 
between the victim and the defendant, as was the case in Vinnie.  
Further, the prosecutor presented testimony from only one 
witness, Harper.  Harper testified that he saw a person 
generally resembling the defendant engage in a conversation with 
the victim, and then saw the same individual some minutes later 
jogging down the street, heading away from where the two had 
been standing, after a single gunshot rang out.  Harper did not 
then, or at any later point, identify the running man as the 
defendant. 
The prosecutor, however, also presented the video 
surveillance footage showing the defendant several blocks away 
from the scene of the shooting, approximately ten minutes 
earlier.  As discussed, this footage depicts the defendant 
standing outside a grocery store as the victim departs the store 
and walks east on Ashmont Street.  Shortly thereafter, the 
defendant enters a vehicle that is driven out of the camera's 
view (along a one-way street), in the direction that the victim 
walked. 
This court has held that a prosecutor's "clear and 
relatively contemporaneous instruction presumably mitigated the 
prejudice from the introduction of prior bad acts evidence."  
See Commonwealth v. Rakes, 478 Mass. 22, 32 (2017).  A curative 
instruction may be adequate where "the prosecutor promptly 
cautioned the grand jury to ignore completely the mention of the 
28 
 
prior arrests."  Commonwealth v. Jenks, 426 Mass. 582, 587 
(1998), S.C., 487 Mass. 1032 (2021).  Here, the instructions the 
prosecutor provided to the grand jury were less than a model of 
clarity.  The instructions first told the grand jurors, "You are 
only to take [the DOC documents] as evidence as it relates to 
this crime."  The prosecutor then clarified that the grand 
jurors should "not use the fact that [the defendant and his 
codefendant] have been arrested before . . . in deliberations 
when [the jurors] determine whether or not they committed this 
crime."  Although the prosecutor's instructions were by no means 
"clear," overall, they nonetheless explained that the grand 
jurors should exclude the prior bad act evidence from their 
consideration as to whether there was probable cause that the 
defendant had committed the crimes alleged.  In sum, the 
instructions were given sufficiently promptly after the evidence 
was introduced, and sufficiently conveyed that the grand jurors 
should not use the prior bad acts to support a finding of 
probable cause. 
"[T]he Commonwealth's burden of proof" to obtain an 
indictment is "relatively low," and "the defendant bears a heavy 
burden to show impairment of the grand jury proceeding" 
(citation omitted).  Commonwealth v. Fernandes, 483 Mass. 1, 7 
(2019).  The probable cause standard requires the Commonwealth 
to provide "reasonably trustworthy information . . . sufficient 
29 
 
to warrant a prudent man in believing that the defendant had 
committed or was committing an offense."  See Commonwealth v. 
Moran, 453 Mass. 880, 883 (2009).  It is not evident that, 
absent the prior bad act evidence, the jury likely would not 
have decided to indict.  Therefore, where the grand jury were 
presented with sufficient probable cause to issue the 
indictments, the prior bad act evidence did not sufficiently 
influence the grand jury's decision to indict to require 
dismissal of the indictments. 
 
c.  Instructions on identification testimony.  The 
defendant maintains that the judge's instruction on eyewitness 
identification, which was not entirely based on the model jury 
instruction, was erroneous and requires a new trial.  The 
defendant contends that, by declining to instruct the jury that 
they "should consider whether a witness ever failed to identify 
the victim," the judge "usurped" the jury's role as fact finder.  
The defendant also argues that the instructions subverted the 
purpose of jury instructions to "inform the jury of the 
Commonwealth's heavy burden of proof as to the accuracy of the 
identification, and to furnish the criteria by which the jury 
can assess the quality of the identification" (citation 
omitted).  See Commonwealth v. Johnson, 470 Mass. 389, 395 
(2015).  The defendant maintains that the instruction improperly 
suggested that the witnesses' descriptions of the person they 
30 
 
observed near the scene constituted a positive identification of 
that individual as the defendant, where neither witness was 
asked to, or did, identify the person he saw running from the 
scene.  In addition, the defendant argues that the judge 
improperly omitted to remind the jury that the Commonwealth bore 
the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt both that the 
defendant was the person the witnesses observed and that the 
person they saw shot and killed the victim. 
As this court has noted, "eyewitness identification may be 
an important issue at trial even where no eyewitness made a 
positive identification of the defendant as the perpetrator, but 
where eyewitnesses have provided a physical description of the 
perpetrator or his clothing."  Commonwealth v. Franklin, 465 
Mass. 895, 912 (2013).  Here, Harper described a Black man of 
medium build, approximately five feet, six inches to five feet, 
nine inches tall, with a medium skin tone, wearing baggy beige 
pants and a light jacket, who had a chipped front tooth on the 
right side.  The man ran past Harper, approximately two to three 
feet from where Harper was standing on the sidewalk, heading in 
the direction of the MBTA station.  Gibson recalled that he saw 
a Black man of medium build, approximately five feet, six inches 
to five feet, eight inches tall, wearing sagging pants that he 
was pulling up as he ran; at the same time, Gibson said that he 
saw his neighbor (Harper) outside on his porch.  Both Harper and 
31 
 
Gibson testified that they had not seen anyone else on the 
street at that time, aside from the victim lying on the 
sidewalk. 
Due to the specificity of the connection between the 
defendant and the person Harper observed -- that both had a 
chipped front tooth on the right side, and that both wore beige, 
baggy pants and a lightweight jacket -- the judge agreed with 
defense counsel that the defendant was entitled to a modified 
instruction on eyewitness identification.  The defendant 
requested that the instruction include two specific sentences:  
one instructing that the jury should consider whether the 
witness ever failed to identify the defendant, and the second 
reminding the jury, "If you are not convinced beyond a 
reasonable doubt that the defendant is the person who committed 
the alleged crimes, you must find the defendant not guilty." 
The judge declined to provide the first requested 
instruction, on the ground that none of the witnesses had failed 
to identify the person they observed on Ashmont Street as the 
defendant.  Neither witness was ever asked to identify the 
person they had seen, so neither witness had had an opportunity 
to fail to identify that person as the defendant.  Nor was 
either witness asked to identify the defendant in the court 
room.  The judge implied that he believed the Commonwealth made 
a strategic decision to provide less evidence to the jury in 
32 
 
order to avoid the possibility that, if given the opportunity, 
either witness would attempt to identify the defendant and fail 
to do so.  The defendant argues that permitting such a tactic 
"rewarded the Commonwealth for its evasion of standard police 
procedure." 
Regardless of the merits of the judge's comment as to the 
officers' motives, witnesses who have not specifically 
identified a defendant routinely testify to such observations as 
they were able to make of an individual they saw at or near the 
scene of a crime, and prosecutors routinely introduce video 
surveillance tapes that do not permit identification of a 
particular individual, or even allow a glimpse of a suspect's 
face.  In circumstances where eyewitnesses provide physical 
descriptions, but no positive identification of a defendant, 
this court has noted that, "where requested by the defendant, a 
judge should provide specific guidance to the jury regarding the 
evaluation of such eyewitness testimony through some variation 
of the approved identification instruction."  See Franklin, 465 
Mass. at 912. 
Here, in particular, the defendant objected to the judge's 
repeated use of the word "identification" to describe the 
witnesses' observations.  The defendant asserts that the use of 
this word "conflat[ed] the description [the witness] gave with a 
positive identification of [the defendant]."  Although the 
33 
 
judge's use of the word "identification" might have been 
somewhat less clear than the word "description," that use would 
not have created sufficient confusion to cause a reasonable 
juror to disregard the fact that each witness clearly testified 
that he did not identify the person running from the scene as 
the defendant.  Indeed, the judge noted that, in using the word 
"identification," he was referring to each witness's 
identification of specific clothing worn by the person each 
witness saw rather than to an identification of the person as 
the defendant.  In sum, there was no abuse of discretion in the 
judge's decisions not to instruct in the precise language the 
defendant requested, in using the word "identification" rather 
than "description," and in omitting a reminder to the jury of 
the witnesses' "failure" to identify the defendant. 
 
d.  Voir dire of venire.  The defendant argues that a new 
trial is required because certain of the prosecutor's questions 
to the venire, intended to detect potential jurors who were 
biased by the so-called CSI effect, resulted in a jury biased 
toward the Commonwealth and inclined to disregard a lack of 
evidence.  See Commonwealth v. Wolfe, 478 Mass. 142, 152 n.1 
(2017) (Lowy, J., dissenting).  The defendant maintains that 
this line of questioning, and particularly the query whether the 
potential juror would "need scientific evidence" in order to 
decide the case, had "the effect of identifying and selecting 
34 
 
jurors who were predisposed to convicting the defendant based on 
evidence the Commonwealth would present."  See Commonwealth v. 
Perez, 460 Mass. 683, 691 (2011). 
 
Both the defendant's trial counsel and counsel for his 
codefendant separately requested that the prosecutor's question 
be reworded to eliminate the use of the word "need."4  After the 
prosecutor said that he routinely used that phrasing, the judge 
allowed him to continue to do so.  The prosecutor then used 
peremptory challenges to remove any juror who expressed any 
hesitancy about the absence of forensic evidence.5 
 
 
4 The codefendant's counsel asked, "In terms of the wording 
that you would need . . . I think maybe something along the 
lines of, could you be a fair and impartial without, need, 
implies almost a commitment that if they say they needed it, 
then they are out." 
 
 
5 Some of the prosecutor's exchanges included the following: 
 
Q.:  "The lack of forensic evidence would that be a problem 
with you in deciding this case do you think?" 
 
A.:  "No, I haven't heard anything yet." 
 
. . . 
 
Q.:  "Do you think you can make a decision on a case where 
people see things and tell you what they saw instead of 
having forensics?" 
 
A.:  "Yes." 
 
. . . 
 
Q.:  "Do you think being a scientist and having listened to 
some of those things you would need scientific evidence in 
order to make a decision on the case?" 
35 
 
The defendant maintains that these questions, specifically 
those inquiring whether a juror would "need" scientific 
evidence, in conjunction with the Commonwealth's use of 
peremptory challenges to dismiss every juror who waivered in 
responding, produced a jury "predisposed to convicting the 
defendant based on evidence the Commonwealth would present."  
 
 
A.:  "I don't think so.  I think, you know, our job is to 
kind of judge the facts that are presented to us and if we 
don't have forensic evidence we can only [rely] on kind of 
. . . what's there." 
 
. . . 
 
Q.:  "But do you think if there was no science you can make 
a decision about the case?" 
 
A.:  "I think so, yes." 
 
. . . 
 
Q.:  "This case is likely to involve not a lot of forensic 
science but some witnesses, what they saw, maybe some 
video.  Do you think you would need forensics science in 
order to make a decision on a case like this?" 
  
A.:  "No." 
 
. . . 
 
Q.:  "Do you think you would need to have forensic science 
to make a decision on a criminal case?" 
 
A.:  "I think it would be helpful but –-" 
 
Q.:  "But if there was none, do you think you could make a 
decision based on what would be presented?" 
 
A.:  "Yes." 
 
36 
 
See Perez, 460 Mass. at 690-691 & n.11 (discussing studies on 
subject and concluding that there is little empirical evidence 
showing existence of "CSI effect").  The defendant contends that 
this line of questioning is distinguishable from questions the 
court has deemed permissible, see Commonwealth v. Gray, 465 
Mass. 330, 337-339, cert. denied, 571 U.S. 1014 (2013), and 
should be considered in light of Commonwealth v. Bowden, 379 
Mass. 472, 485-486 (1980). 
In Bowden, 379 Mass. at 485, the judge instructed the jury 
that, in deliberating, they were not to consider the lack of 
scientific evidence.  We concluded that the instruction 
constituted reversible error, because the judge sought to 
preclude the jury from considering "a permissible ground on 
which to build a defense."  Id. at 485-486.  In Gray, 465 Mass. 
at 337, by contrast, the judge inquired of potential jurors, 
"Would the absence of DNA or fingerprint evidence prevent you 
from fairly evaluating the evidence in this case?"  We 
determined that, in those circumstances, "[t]he question posed 
suggested to potential jurors that they should evaluate fairly 
the evidence introduced at trial," id. at 340; we also noted 
that "we remain[ed] skeptical that there is a need for voir dire 
questions designed to counter any 'CSI effect,' and again 
observe[d] that such questions should be posed sparingly," id. 
at 339. 
37 
 
 
Here, although the questions could have been better and 
more neutrally phrased, and in particular the use of the word 
"need" would have been best avoided, there was no abuse of 
discretion in the judge's determination that the questions about 
scientific evidence were appropriate in these circumstances.  
The questions were not identical in form, they were presented 
conversationally, and they were intended to assess whether any 
of the potential jurors harbored biases that could cause them to 
reject any case based largely on circumstantial and witness 
evidence, regardless of the strength of that evidence.  See, 
e.g., Charles v. State, 414 Md. 726, 731-739 (2010) (abuse of 
discretion to ask jurors whether they could not convict 
defendant without "scientific evidence," because question 
suggested that finding defendant guilty was foregone 
conclusion). 
 
e.  Prosecutor's closing argument.  The defendant argues 
that, in closing, the prosecutor referenced evidence not before 
the jury, misstated the evidence, and improperly attempted to 
inflame the jury's emotions and evoke their sympathy.  In the 
defendant's view, the improprieties in the closing argument 
themselves require a new trial.  Although the defendant is 
correct that quite a few of the prosecutor's remarks were 
improper, the improprieties do not warrant a new trial. 
38 
 
 
"[C]losing arguments must be limited to the facts in 
evidence and the reasonable inferences that may be drawn 
therefrom."  Commonwealth v. Diaz, 478 Mass. 481, 487 (2017).  
At the beginning of his argument, the prosecutor said, 
"The moment [the defendant] decided to hunt down [the 
victim], execute him on Ashmont Street was the moment he 
saw him come out of that [grocery store]. . . .  [The 
defendant] ducks down and begins to plot his execution of 
[the victim] on that street." 
 
The prosecutor later told the jury to "look at the pictures" 
(the store surveillance video footage) and asserted, "You have 
the moment, this is the moment that shows when [the defendant] 
formed the intent and thought about, to plan and murder [the 
victim]."  The prosecutor made these and other remarks as he 
replayed the surveillance video footage.  At one point when the 
defendant bent slightly toward the open window as he was 
standing next to the Honda Accord, the prosecutor told the jury 
that the defendant was ducking down because he did not want the 
victim to see him, and "maybe pulling out the firearm, maybe 
not.  He is doing something in that car.  [Defense counsel] does 
not have an explanation for these actions coming up." 
 
The defendant challenges the prosecutor's often reiterated 
characterization of the shooting as an "execution," repeated 
assertions that the defendant was hunting down the victim to 
execute him, and statements concerning the store surveillance 
footage as misstating the evidence and as unsupported by the 
39 
 
record.  The defendant also contends that the prosecutor's 
repeated remarks that the defendant was "plotting," "planning," 
and "skulking" as he was running down Ashmont Street, as well as 
the descriptions of the shooting as an "execution," 
impermissibly were designed to inflame the jury's emotions.  The 
defendant argues that the use of the words "execution" and 
"plot" were intended to suggest a "gang hit," something the 
evidence did not support.  Further, the defendant points to the 
prosecutor's assertion that the surveillance footage shows the 
defendant pulling out a gun and "plotting" to kill the victim, 
as well as other comments about the defendant's actions, as 
descriptions of purported actions that are not actually depicted 
in the video surveillance footage.  In particular, the 
surveillance footage shows nothing that could be considered to 
look like a gun, or the defendant pulling out anything from his 
clothing or the Honda Accord. 
 
A prosecutor is entitled to argue forcefully for a 
conviction, and the jury are presumed to understand that a 
certain amount of hyperbole is forceful advocacy, not evidence.  
See Commonwealth v. Rutherford, 476 Mass. 639, 643-644 (2017); 
Commonwealth v. Wilson, 427 Mass. 336, 350 (1998).  Although a 
prosecutor may urge the jury to draw reasonable inferences from 
the evidence, a prosecutor may not engage in speculation or 
40 
 
surmise, or ask the jury to do so.  See Commonwealth v. Walters, 
485 Mass. 271, 290-291 (2020). 
 
Here, the absence of evidence of a "plot" between the 
defendant and Cousin, the other man in the vehicle outside the 
store, is evidenced by the fact that the trial judge allowed the 
codefendant's motion for a directed verdict before closing 
argument; at that point, the jury were instructed that the 
codefendant was no longer part of the case and that they were 
not to speculate as to the reasons that was so.  To the extent 
that the word "plotting" can be applicable to a single 
individual making a plan, that was clearly not the prosecutor's 
implication, as he repeatedly drew the jury's attention to the 
car with the codefendant sitting in it and claimed (unsupported 
by the video surveillance footage) that the footage showed the 
defendant repeatedly "ducking" into the car and "conversing" 
with the codefendant, "talking back and forth." 
 
The repeated use of the word "execution" to describe an 
apparently motiveless shooting has been deemed "improper" and 
"beyond mere hyberbole."  See Commonwealth v. Andrews, 427 Mass. 
434, 444 (1998).  At the same time, the characterization of 
shooting the victim in the head at close range as an 
"execution," or the defendant waiting by his vehicle and then 
running after the victim as "skulking," has been viewed as 
strong but permissible language for actions that were described 
41 
 
by a witness or seen on video footage.  Compare Commonwealth v. 
Francis, 450 Mass. 132, 141 (2007), S.C., 477 Mass. 582 (2017) 
(prosecutor's characterization of killing as "execution-style" 
was "permissible comment on the evidence"); Commonwealth v. 
Beauchamp, 49 Mass. App. Ct. 591, 608-609 (2000), S.C., 481 
Mass. 1030 (2019) (use of word "ambush" was not overly 
inflammatory characterization of evidence that showed defendant 
"lured the victim into his apartment . . . and began shooting 
upon entry of the victim"). 
 
The prosecutor's comments that the surveillance footage 
showed the defendant pulling out a gun or forming a plan "the 
moment he saw [the victim] come out of that [grocery store]," or 
showed the defendant repeatedly "ducking" into the car and 
talking to the codefendant, are clearly misstatements of the 
videotape and were improper.  See Diaz, 478 Mass. at 489.  On 
the other hand, the prosecutor's comments that the defendant 
looked in the store window, ran after the victim, ran past 
Harper and waited for him to go inside to be sure the victim was 
alone, and then "execut[ed]" the victim, are either directly 
supported by the evidence or reasonable inferences to be drawn 
therefrom.  See Francis, 450 Mass. at 141 (prosecutor's 
description of killing as "execution-style" was "permissible 
comment on the evidence").  Contrast Andrews, 427 Mass. at 444 
42 
 
(court concluded that "[n]o evidence supported [the 
Commonwealth's] characterizations of the shooting"). 
 
In addition, the defendant argues that, throughout the 
prosecutor's closing, he attempted to shift the burden to the 
defendant to disprove that he was guilty of the crimes charged.  
The defendant points to the prosecutor's remark that defense 
counsel had "no explanation" for some of the actions by the 
defendant seen in the video surveillance footage, the prosecutor 
telling the jury that defense counsel was trying to "distract" 
them, and the prosecutor asking defense counsel to "explain" the 
defendant's actions.  The defendant objected to the last of 
these remarks and sought a mistrial.  The judge allowed the 
objection and immediately added that the defendant "doesn't have 
any obligation to prove anything."  The judge also instructed, 
before and after closing arguments, that closing arguments are 
not evidence.  Moreover, the judge began his final charge by 
explaining, 
"Ladies and gentlemen, let me explain two of the rulings I 
made and fill in some of the instructions that I 
inadvertently left out.  First of all, to the extent that 
the Commonwealth made an argument that the defense didn't 
have an explanation for a piece of evidence, I sustained 
that objection, the defense doesn't have to explain 
anything.  The defendant doesn't even have to close.  The 
burden of proof is on the prosecution it always remains on 
the prosecution it never shifts to the defense, so the 
question for you to resolve is, has the Government proven 
its case beyond a reasonable doubt?  I just wanted to make 
that clear." 
 
43 
 
 
The prosecutor's suggestion that the defendant should have 
offered an explanation for his behavior, and disparagement of 
defense counsel, were improper.  "A prosecutor cannot comment on 
a defendant's failure to contradict testimony and cannot make 
statements that shift the burden of proof from the Commonwealth 
to the defendant."  Commonwealth v. Nelson, 468 Mass. 1, 12 
(2014).  It also was improper for the prosecutor to "suggest[] 
that the defendant has an affirmative duty to bring forth 
evidence of his innocence, thereby lessening the Commonwealth's 
burden to prove every element of a crime" (citation omitted).  
Commonwealth v. Johnson, 463 Mass. 95, 112 (2012). 
 
In assessing the prejudicial impact of improper burden 
shifting, a reviewing court considers the statements in the 
context of the entire case.  Here, the judge's contemporaneous 
curative instruction, in conjunction with the more detailed and 
pointed instruction at the beginning of the final charge, cured 
the error to a significant extent.  In addition, with respect to 
many of the misstatements about the video footage, the jury had 
the footage before them while deliberating, and could have 
decided for themselves whether the defendant was ducking down or 
pulling out a gun, as well as whether the footage showed what he 
was thinking.  Thus, any prejudice was not so significant as to 
require a new trial.  See Commonwealth v. Caputo, 439 Mass. 153, 
166-167 (2003) (prosecutor's improper statement in closing that 
44 
 
defendant had "no good explanation" for particular piece of 
evidence unfavorable to defendant "should not have been made" 
and "improperly placed a burden on the defendant to produce 
evidence"; in context of entire case, however, and given judge's 
curative instructions, error did not require new trial).  
Contrast Commonwealth v. Coren, 437 Mass. 723, 731-733 (2002), 
citing Commonwealth v. Kozec, 399 Mass. 514, 518 (1987) 
(multiple material misstatements in prosecutor's closing 
required new trial, where judge's curative instruction was vague 
and general, and it was not clear whether curative instruction 
alone would have been enough to cure prejudice from jury having 
heard misstated evidence). 
 
f.  Review under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  Having carefully 
reviewed the record pursuant to our duty under G. L. c. 278, 
§ 33E, we discern no reason to exercise our extraordinary 
authority to reduce the degree of guilt or to order a new trial. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgments affirmed.