Title: Commonwealth v. Scott

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revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 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-
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SJC-11303 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  ROBERT SCOTT.1 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     September 5, 2014. - December 26, 2014. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Spina, Botsford, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. 
 
 
Homicide.  Evidence, Third-party culprit.  Constitutional Law, 
Fair trial.  Due Process of Law, Fair trial.  Fair Trial.  
Jury and Jurors.  Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Fair 
trial, Argument by prosecutor, Jury and jurors, 
Substitution of alternate juror, Question by jury, 
Instructions to jury. 
 
 
 
 
Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on December 19, 2008. 
 
 
The case was tried before Peter M. Lauriat, J. 
 
 
 
Ruth Greenberg for the defendant. 
 
Paul B. Linn, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
LENK, J.  In December, 1984, a young woman was found dead, 
her body badly beaten, in a vacant lot in Boston.  Twenty-three 
                     
 
1 Also known as Sultan Omar Chezulu. 
2 
years later, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was extracted from 
samples taken from the victim's body and clothing soon after her 
death and run through a national computerized database.  A match 
was found with the defendant's DNA.  The defendant was tried for 
murder in the first degree.  His defense at trial was that he 
had had consensual sex with the victim but had not been the 
killer.  The jury returned a verdict of guilty on theories of 
premeditation, extreme atrocity or cruelty, and felony-murder.  
The defendant appeals from his conviction. 
 
The defendant claims that the evidence was insufficient to 
support the verdict, and that other errors in the proceedings 
require a new trial.  These include the judge's exclusion of 
evidence purported, by the defendant, to show that police had 
investigated the case inadequately or that the crime might have 
been committed by a third party; the prosecutor's remarks, in 
his closing argument, that there had been no evidence that the 
victim had engaged in "risky behavior"; and the judge's 
instruction to the jury, after one original juror had been 
discharged, that an alternate juror should get "up to speed" 
about a question that had been posed by the jury and answered by 
the judge. 
 
Having reviewed the entire record pursuant to G. L. c. 278, 
§ 33E, we discern no error requiring reversal, and no cause to 
3 
exercise our authority to reduce the defendant's conviction to a 
lesser degree of guilt or to order a new trial. 
 
1.  Facts.  We summarize the facts the jury could have 
found, reserving certain details for later discussion. 
 
In December, 1984, the victim's body was found by a 
passerby in a vacant lot in Boston.  She was eighteen years old.  
An autopsy revealed that the victim had suffered multiple blunt 
impact injuries to her head, fractures to her skull, lacerations 
and contusions to her face, and fractured and loosened teeth.  A 
sock had been tied as a ligature around the victim's neck.  She 
had been alive when her injuries were inflicted. 
 
Although the victim was identified, the case remained 
unsolved for many years.  After being contacted by the victim's 
sister in 2006, the Boston police department reopened the case.  
Police reexamined evidence collected in the original 
investigation, including the victim's clothing and vaginal and 
anal swabs taken from her body at the autopsy. 
 
The vaginal and anal swabs, as well as a stain from the 
victim's skirt, were found to contain sperm cells.  DNA testing 
was performed on those cells, and the DNA pattern found in the 
cells was run through a national database.2  The database 
                     
 
2 Most of the information in this database, the combined DNA 
index system (known as CODIS), concerns individuals who have 
 
4 
returned a match with the defendant's DNA.  The likelihood that 
the DNA pattern shared by the defendant and by the tested 
samples would be found in a random individual was one in at 
least 430 million. 
 
The evidence reexamined by police also included a pair of 
underwear found on the ground about five or six feet away from 
the victim's body.  DNA matching the victim's DNA was found on 
the underwear.  No sperm cells were detected on them. 
 
The defendant was living and working in Boston at the time 
of the victim's death.  By 2008, when the case was again being 
investigated, he was living in Atlanta, Georgia.  Boston police 
detectives traveled to Atlanta in late 2008 to arrest the 
defendant.  After he was arrested and brought back to Boston, 
the defendant said to a detective, "I have to face the music 
now."3  
 
At trial, the theory of the defense was that the defendant 
had had consensual sex with the victim prior to her death, but 
that he was not her killer.  The defendant sought to introduce 
evidence suggesting that the victim might have been killed by 
third parties or that the police investigation had been lacking.  
                                                                  
been convicted of crimes.  The nature of the database was not 
revealed to the jury. 
 
3 The defendant was also wanted on a charge of failure to 
register as a sex offender, a fact not disclosed to the jury. 
5 
As discussed in detail infra, the judge excluded much, though 
not all, of this evidence. 
 
The victim's sister and the victim's friend and former 
neighbor testified that they had never heard of the defendant 
and that the victim had never been with older men or with men 
who did not speak Spanish.4  The victim's sister also testified 
that the victim had been at home during the nights of the week 
of Christmas, 1984, including the night before the victim was 
killed; and that, on the day of the killing, the victim had left 
home early in the morning and had worked until 6 P.M.  
 
A police criminologist, Kevin Kosiorek, opined that the 
sperm found in the victim's body had been deposited there around 
the time of her death and at the location where she was 
discovered.  This opinion was based, in part, on the fact that 
no sperm cells were detected on the victim's underwear; 
according to Kosiorek, "if somebody is up walking around, . . . 
semen would be draining out of her and would be on the underwear 
if she were wearing it . . . ."  Kosiorek also stated that the 
pattern of stains found on the victim's skirt was "consistent 
with drainage if a person were laying [sic] horizontal[ly]."  
                     
 
4 The defendant had been thirty-six years old at the time of 
the victim's death.  In closing argument, the prosecutor invited 
the jury to assume that the defendant did not speak Spanish; no 
evidence concerning this matter was introduced, however. 
6 
 
Kosiorek provided the opinion that sperm "heads," which 
were identified in this case, are usually detectible only within 
"a day or maybe a little more" after sexual intercourse.  In 
addition, while only small quantities of sperm and seminal fluid 
were collected, Kosiorek explained that the amounts collected 
are not indicative of the amounts actually deposited, and that 
the amounts deposited are, in any event, poor indicators of the 
timing of intercourse.5 
 
Soon after being charged, the jury submitted a note to the 
judge, asking, "[C]ould the defense have independently tested 
any of the physical evidence?"  The judge sent back a note 
stating, "Whether the defendant could seek his own testing of 
any physical evidence is not a question that was addressed by 
the evidence.  Because you are to confine your deliberations to 
the evidence presented at the trial, you should not further 
consider or discuss that question." 
                     
 
5 The defendant's expert, Brian Wraxall, testified about a 
study that had found that sperm cells can be identified "up to 
about five and a half days" after sexual intercourse.  Wraxall 
also opined that, based on the amounts of seminal fluid and 
sperm cells collected in this case, intercourse had occurred 
"between . . . probably from about an hour to at least . . . 
[twenty-four] hours" prior to the victim's death. 
7 
 
On the morning after the jury began deliberating, one juror 
was discharged because she had failed to appear in court.6  The 
discharged juror was replaced by an alternate.  As discussed 
more fully infra, the judge instructed the newly-constituted 
jury that they were to "start [their] deliberations all over 
again."  The judge also stated that the question posed by the 
jury on the previous day "should be shared with our new juror as 
well so he is up to speed on communications that our 
deliberating jury has had with the court." 
 
On the afternoon of the same day, the jury returned a 
guilty verdict, convicting the defendant of all three theories 
of murder in the first degree. 
 
2.  Sufficiency of the evidence.  The defendant argues that 
the evidence at trial was insufficient to support the verdict.  
He asserts that, although ample evidence demonstrated that he 
had had sexual relations with the victim, there was no evidence 
connecting him to her death. 
 
Our inquiry is "whether, after viewing the evidence in the 
light most favorable to the Commonwealth, any rational trier of 
fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond 
                     
 
6 The defendant objected to the decision to discharge the 
juror, noting that he "fe[lt that] this juror is favorable to 
him."  He does not press this objection on appeal, and we 
discern no error.  Another juror had been excused, with the 
parties' consent, during trial, when he felt poorly and was 
taken to the hospital. 
8 
a reasonable doubt."  Commonwealth v. Woods, 466 Mass. 707, 712-
713 (2014), citing Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 677–
678 (1979).  "[T]he evidence and the inferences permitted to be 
drawn therefrom must be 'of sufficient force to bring minds of 
ordinary intelligence and sagacity to the persuasion of [guilt] 
beyond a reasonable doubt.'"  Commonwealth v. Latimore, supra at 
677, quoting Commonwealth v. Cooper, 264 Mass. 368, 373 (1928) 
(second alteration in original).  Circumstantial evidence alone 
may suffice.  Commonwealth v. Woods, supra at 713, citing 
Commonwealth v. Nolin, 448 Mass. 207, 215 (2007).  The evidence 
in this case satisfies these requirements. 
 
As detailed, the evidence was not limited to the fact that 
sperm cells matching the defendant's DNA were found in the 
victim's body and on her clothing.  The pattern of sperm on the 
victim's skirt, and the absence of sperm on the victim's 
underwear, indicated that the sperm had been deposited around 
the time of the victim's death and at the location where her 
body was discovered.  The people closest to the victim, namely 
her sister and her friend and former neighbor, testified that 
they had never heard of the defendant and that the victim had 
never been with older men or with men who did not speak Spanish.  
The victim's sister also testified to the victim's whereabouts 
on the day of her death and on the preceding nights.  All of 
these pieces of evidence tended to negate the possibility that 
9 
the defendant had had sex with the victim on some prior occasion 
unrelated to her death.  Finally, the defendant stated to a 
police officer, after he was arrested, that he had "to face the 
music now." 
 
Minds "of ordinary intelligence and sagacity," Commonwealth 
v. Cooper, 264 Mass. at 373, could find this evidence 
sufficiently forceful to establish beyond a reasonable doubt 
that the defendant had killed the victim deliberately, upon a 
reflective decision to do so; that the killing involved the 
infliction of injuries brutal both in number and in severity; 
and that it was carried out in the course of the felony of 
aggravated rape.  The evidence was therefore sufficient to 
support the verdict of guilty on all three theories of murder in 
the first degree. 
 
3.  Third-party culprit evidence and Bowden evidence.  As 
stated, the defendant sought to present evidence suggesting, in 
his view, that the victim might have been killed by third 
parties, and that the police had conducted an inadequate 
investigation.  The focal point of this evidence was a set of 
police reports found in the files of a Boston police detective, 
Frank Mulvey, who had been involved in the original 
investigation.  Mulvey had died by the time of trial. 
 
The most detailed police report in Mulvey's file (first 
report) related the following account, provided in its entirety 
10 
by the victim's mother, speaking through an interpreter.  In 
October, 1984, police searched the apartment of one of the 
victim's friends, a woman named Yvonne.  Drugs and cash that 
belonged to the victim's former boy friend, who was known as 
Chulo,7 were hidden in an adjacent apartment, and police did not 
find them.  The victim and Yvonne falsely told Chulo that the 
drugs and the cash had been confiscated.  Yvonne used the money 
to buy a car.  Chulo subsequently threatened the victim at 
gunpoint, and she "told him the whole story."  Chulo set the car 
bought by Yvonne on fire.  The first report also included 
another, apparently unrelated piece of information provided by 
the victim's mother:  the mother reportedly stated that the 
victim had told her, shortly before her death, that she "had 
been present in [the Jamaica Plain section of Boston] when [an 
African-American] guy had been shot in the head." 
 
Two other police reports contained in Mulvey's file were 
far less informative.  According to one (second report), a 
police sergeant had received "information [that Yvonne] had some 
Dominicans do [the victim] because she thought that she ratted 
on a drug deal."  According to the other (third report), police 
officers had relayed "info[rmation] they heard on [the] street" 
                     
 
7 To protect the privacy of the victim, we refer to Yvonne 
by her first name and to Chulo by his nickname.  See G. L. 
c. 265, § 24C. 
11 
that police should "look into" Chulo, who was "not carrying a 
full load."8 
 
The judge did not permit the defendant to enter these 
police reports in evidence, stating that "[t]here's no indicia 
sufficient . . . for the court to determine [their] 
reliability."  The judge also excluded certain questions that 
defense counsel wished to ask witnesses about the reports.  
Specifically, counsel was not permitted to ask Yvonne's sister 
whether Yvonne had been involved with drugs; and in his cross-
examination of the police detective who had reopened the 
investigation, Juan Torres, counsel was not permitted to discuss 
the substance of the police reports.  In addition, the judge 
denied the defendant's request for a jury instruction concerning 
alleged inadequacies in the police investigation, although the 
defendant was permitted to make arguments about this matter in 
closing.9 
                     
 
8 Defense counsel also asserted at a hearing that police had 
been told that another acquaintance of the victim had called the 
victim's workplace on the day after she died, before her body 
had been discovered, to say that the victim would not arrive at 
work that day.  The evidence supporting this assertion was not 
included in the defendant's proffer of third-party culprit 
evidence or Bowden evidence.  See Commonwealth v. Bowden, 379 
Mass. 472 (1980). 
 
9 The defendant preserved an objection to the judge's 
decision to refrain from giving an instruction about the alleged 
inadequacy of the police investigation.  He does not press this 
objection on appeal, and "[t]here was no error because the 
 
12 
 
The defendant argues that the police reports, as well as 
testimony that might have been elicited by the excluded lines of 
questioning, should have been admitted both as evidence of 
third-party culprits and as evidence of an inadequate 
investigation under Commonwealth v. Bowden, 379 Mass. 472 
(1980).  Because the defendant preserved his objections to the 
judge's rulings on these issues, we review for prejudicial 
error.  See Commonwealth v. Cruz, 445 Mass. 589, 591 (2005). 
 
a.  Third-party culprit evidence.  "A defendant may 
introduce evidence that tends to show that another person 
committed the crime or had the motive, intent, and opportunity 
to commit it."  Commonwealth v. Silva-Santiago, 453 Mass. 782, 
800 (2009) (Silva-Santiago), quoting Commonwealth v. Lawrence, 
404 Mass. 378, 387 (1989).  We have "given wide latitude to the 
admission of relevant evidence that a person other than the 
defendant may have committed the crime charged.  'If the 
evidence is "of substantial probative value, and will not tend 
to prejudice or confuse, all doubt should be resolved in favor 
of admissibility."'"  Id. at 800-801, quoting Commonwealth v. 
Conkey, 443 Mass. 60, 66 (2004).  See Commonwealth v. Rosa, 422 
                                                                  
giving of such an instruction is never required."  Commonwealth 
v. Williams, 439 Mass. 678, 687 (2003). 
13 
Mass. 18, 23 (1996), quoting Commonwealth v. Keizer, 377 Mass. 
264, 267 (1979). 
 
We have imposed two types of restrictions on the admission 
of third-party culprit evidence, recognizing that "feeble third-
party culprit evidence . . . inevitably diverts jurors' 
attention away from the defendant on trial and onto the third 
party, and essentially requires the Commonwealth to prove beyond 
a reasonable doubt that the third-party culprit did not commit 
the crime."  Silva-Santiago, supra at 801.  First, in order to 
be admitted, third-party culprit evidence "must have a rational 
tendency to prove the issue the defense raises, and [it] cannot 
be too remote or speculative."  Id., quoting Commonwealth v. 
Rosa, 422 Mass. at 22.  In addition, third-party culprit 
evidence is often hearsay, namely out-of-court statements 
"offered for the truth of the matter asserted --  that a third 
party is the true culprit."  Silva-Santiago, supra at 801.  Such 
evidence may be admitted "only if, in the judge's discretion, 
'the evidence is otherwise relevant, will not tend to prejudice 
or confuse the jury, and there are other "substantial connecting 
links" to the crime.'"  Id., quoting Commonwealth v. Rice, 441 
Mass. 291, 305 (2004).  See Mass. G. Evid. § 1105 (2014). 
 
The opportunity to present third-party culprit evidence is 
of "constitutional dimension," Silva-Santiago, supra at 804 
n.26, because it is rooted in the right of criminal defendants 
14 
to "a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense."  
Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690 (1986), quoting California 
v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485 (1984).  See art. 12 of the 
Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.  Accordingly, we examine a 
judge's decision to exclude third-party culprit evidence 
"independently," Silva-Santiago, supra at 804 n.26, under "a 
standard higher than that of abuse of discretion," Commonwealth 
v. Conkey, 443 Mass. at 67 n.14. 
 
Examining the exclusion of the proffered third-party 
culprit evidence independently, we are satisfied that there was 
no error.  To begin with, even had it not been hearsay, the 
evidence offered by the defendant was "remote" and 
"speculative."  Silva-Santiago, supra at 801.  In other words, 
for the following reasons, this evidence was limited in both 
reliability and relevance. 
 
The second report and the third report were patently 
unreliable.  The information in these reports was vague; the 
second report relayed unspecified "information" that Yvonne "had 
some Dominicans do" the victim, and all that the third report 
suggested was that police "should look into" Chulo, who was "not 
carrying a full load."  In addition, the basis for the vague 
information in these reports was unclear:  the second report was 
written as a result of a telephone call from a police sergeant 
who said he "ha[d] information," without specifying the source 
15 
of it; and the information in the third report was "heard on 
[the] street." 
 
The first report, which originated from an interview with 
the victim's mother, was more detailed.  However, the basis of 
the mother's information was specified only as far as the 
statement that the victim had witnessed an unidentified African-
American man being shot in Jamaica Plain; the mother reportedly 
had heard of this incident from the victim herself.  The first 
report did not explain how the mother had learned that the 
victim and Yvonne had stolen drugs from Chulo, that Chulo had 
subsequently threatened the victim with a gun, or that he had 
burnt Yvonne's car. 
 
Moreover, the judge permitted the defendant to conduct a 
voir dire of the mother during trial.10  The mother testified at 
voir dire that she did not remember "anything" about speaking to 
police after her daughter's death, and that she did not remember 
her daughter telling her about stealing drugs from Chulo, being 
threatened at gunpoint, or seeing an African-American man shot 
in Jamaica Plain.  Instead of illuminating the first report, the 
voir dire of the mother thus rendered that report even more 
enigmatic. 
                     
 
10 The victim's mother did not testify before the jury. 
16 
 
The first report also was not probative of the crux of a 
third-party culprit defense, namely "that another person 
committed the crime or had the motive, intent, and opportunity 
to commit it."  Silva-Santiago, supra at 800, quoting 
Commonwealth v. Lawrence, 404 Mass. at 387.  The report implied 
that Yvonne, Chulo, or both might have believed that the victim 
had wronged them.  It would be a stretch to say that such 
beliefs amounted to a "motive" for murder, particularly since 
the first report did not reveal when exactly Chulo was said to 
have threatened the victim or to have burnt Yvonne's car.  In 
any event, the first report provides no indication that either 
Yvonne or Chulo had an intent or an opportunity to kill the 
victim, or that they did, in fact, commit the crime.  Id.  
"Evidence of a third party's ill will or possible motive is 
insufficient alone to support a defense under the third-party 
culprit doctrine."  Commonwealth v. Wright, 469 Mass. 447, 466 
(2014), citing Commonwealth v. Mandeville, 386 Mass. 393, 398 
(1982).  See Commonwealth v. Wood, 469 Mass. 266, 275-276 
(2014); Commonwealth v. Bizanowicz, 459 Mass. 400, 418-419 
(2011). 
 
Thus, it would have been permissible for the judge to 
conclude that the evidence proffered by the defendant was "too 
remote or speculative" to be admitted, even if it had not been 
17 
hearsay.  See Silva-Santiago, supra at 801, quoting Commonwealth 
v. Rosa, 422 Mass. at 22. 
 
Moreover, as hearsay, both the police reports and the 
questioning about them were admissible as third-party culprit 
evidence "only if, in the judge's discretion, 'the evidence is 
otherwise relevant, will not tend to prejudice or confuse the 
jury, and there are other "substantial connecting links" to the 
crime.'"  Id., quoting Commonwealth v. Rice, 441 Mass. at 305.  
For reasons similar to those previously discussed, the evidence 
offered in this case did not satisfy these requirements. 
 
The defendant identified no "connecting links" between 
Yvonne or Chulo and the crime itself, in terms of actual intent 
to harm the victim, geographical or chronological proximity to 
the crime scene, or the like.  Even the first police report, the 
most informative of the three, suggested only a speculative and 
uncorroborated potential motive for the murder.  The evidence 
proffered by the defendant also did not satisfy the requirement 
of "not tend[ing] to prejudice or confuse the jury."  Silva-
Santiago, supra at 801.  The defendant wished to share with the 
jury police officers' notes about vague information from unclear 
sources.  This evidence would have invited the jury to mistake 
the memorialization of uncorroborated leads for known facts 
about events preceding the murder.  Cf. Commonwealth v. 
Mandeville, 386 Mass. at 398-399 (statement suggesting that 
18 
victim's estranged husband suspected third party would have 
tended to mislead jury because it had no tendency to prove that 
third party actually was murderer).  It would have tended, like 
all third-party culprit evidence, to "divert[] jurors' attention 
away from the defendant on trial and onto the third party."  
Silva-Santiago, supra.  No less problematically, it would have 
posed a risk of drawing the jury into an evaluation, irrelevant 
under the circumstances, of the victim's lifestyle and 
character.  See Commonwealth v. Benjamin, 430 Mass. 673, 678 
(2000) (generally, "evidence of a victim's character is not 
admissible in a criminal case").  We conclude, therefore, that 
the judge's exclusion of the evidence proffered by the defendant 
as third-party culprit evidence was not error. 
 
b.  Bowden evidence.  Evidence also may be admissible to 
show "[t]he failure of the authorities to conduct certain tests 
or produce certain evidence," because "[t]he fact that certain 
tests were not conducted or certain police procedures not 
followed could raise a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's 
guilt in the minds of the jurors."  Commonwealth v. Bowden, 379 
Mass. at 485-486 (citations omitted).  "[F]ailure of the police 
to investigate leads concerning another suspect is sufficient 
grounds for a Bowden defense."  Silva-Santiago, supra at 802, 
citing Commonwealth v. Phinney, 446 Mass. 155, 166 (2006).  See 
Mass. G. Evid. § 1107 (2014). 
19 
 
Bowden evidence generally is "offered not to show the truth 
of the matter asserted, but simply to show that the information 
was provided to the police."  Silva-Santiago, supra at 802.  See 
Commonwealth v. Reynolds, 429 Mass. 388, 391 (1999).  Such 
evidence, therefore, is not subject to the limitations 
applicable to hearsay third-party culprit evidence.  In order 
for Bowden evidence to be admitted, however, the judge must 
"conduct a voir dire hearing to determine whether the third-
party culprit information had been furnished to the police, and 
whether the probative weight of the Bowden evidence exceeded the 
risk of unfair prejudice to the Commonwealth from diverting the 
jury's attention to collateral matters."  Silva-Santiago, supra 
at 803.  Cf. Commonwealth v. Pytou Heang, 458 Mass. 827, 851-852 
(2011) (relevant evidence in general should be excluded if its 
"probative value [is] substantially outweighed by the danger of 
unfair prejudice or the risk of misleading the jury"); Mass. G. 
Evid. § 403 (2014).  The exclusion of proffered Bowden evidence 
is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard.  See Silva-
Santiago, supra at 804; Commonwealth v. Mayfield, 398 Mass. 615, 
629 (1986). 
 
The same police reports offered by the defendant as third-
party culprit evidence, and the same attendant lines of 
questioning, were also offered as Bowden evidence.  Because this 
evidence came from police records, it was not necessary for the 
20 
judge to conduct a voir dire hearing to determine whether the 
information had been furnished to the police.  Silva-Santiago, 
supra at 803.  The judge excluded the proffered Bowden evidence 
after considering the arguments of counsel; such evidence was 
only to be admitted if its probative weight "exceeded the risk 
of unfair prejudice to the Commonwealth from diverting the 
jury's attention to collateral matters."  Id.  For the reasons 
we discuss, we discern no abuse of discretion in its exclusion. 
 
First, the evidence proffered was of limited probative 
value.  The police reports from Mulvey's file pointed to 
investigative leads that police had received in the course of 
the original investigation, twenty-five years earlier.  The file 
did not detail the manner in which police had investigated these 
leads.  Mulvey, who had died, could not describe the course that 
the original investigation had run.  The defendant also did not 
offer any additional evidence on this matter.  Thus, the 
evidence proffered was relevant primarily in that it would have 
enabled the jury to surmise that police had failed, in early 
1985, "to investigate leads concerning another suspect," Silva-
Santiago, supra at 802, given that Mulvey's file memorialized 
the leads but not any follow-up to them.  This inference, while 
perhaps permissible, would have represented weak support for a 
Bowden defense. 
21 
 
The excluded evidence also could have shed light on the 
adequacy of the police's reexamination of the original leads 
after the investigation was revived.  This matter was, however, 
probed with some vigor in the defendant's cross-examination of 
Torres, the detective who reopened the investigation.  As 
mentioned, the judge ruled that the substance of the reports 
found in Mulvey's file could not be revealed; but he permitted 
defense counsel to note in his questioning that certain named 
individuals, including Yvonne and Chulo, were identified in the 
file, and to ask Torres whether these individuals had been 
investigated further in the course of the reopened 
investigation.  The Commonwealth's redirect examination revealed 
that police had spoken to Yvonne after reopening the case, had 
arranged for her to testify before the grand jury, and had 
learned that Chulo had been deported by the time the 
investigation had been reopened.11  The excluded evidence would 
thus have made only a limited contribution to a Bowden defense 
focused on the more recent police investigation; while this 
evidence could have informed the jury's assessment of the 
                     
 
11 Detective Juan Torres also testified that the 
acquaintance of the victim who had reportedly called her 
workplace on the day after she was killed had died by the time 
of the renewed investigation. 
22 
police's renewed efforts, those efforts were themselves revealed 
at trial. 
 
Moreover, as discussed, the information in the police 
reports was largely from unidentified origins, and much of it 
was vague.  Consequently, even if the jury were to believe that 
police had failed to pursue certain avenues of investigation 
effectively, either initially or after reopening the case, this 
failure would only weakly have suggested that a third party had 
committed the crime.  In other words, it was unlikely that the 
shortfalls of the investigation suggested by the proffered 
evidence "could raise a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's 
guilt in the minds of the jurors."  See Commonwealth v. Bowden, 
379 Mass. at 486.12 
 
On the other side of the scale, the defendant's Bowden 
evidence posed a risk, as discussed earlier, of confusing the 
jury, and of diverting its attention to collateral questions, 
primarily conjecture concerning the nature of the original 
investigation.  It would also have opened the door to 
speculation, immaterial here, about the victim's lifestyle and 
character. 
                     
 
12 In addition, the voir dire of the victim's mother 
suggested that it would have been difficult for police to 
collect additional information about the events detailed in the 
first police report. 
23 
 
Also relevant to our analysis is the fact that the judge 
did allow the defendant to pursue a number of lines of 
questioning and argument in support of a Bowden defense.  See 
Commonwealth v. Bizanowicz, 459 Mass. at 417, citing 
Commonwealth v. Ridge, 455 Mass. 307, 316 (2009).  As noted, 
defense counsel was permitted to ask Torres whether police had 
revisited various investigative avenues, including avenues based 
on Mulvey's file.  He was also allowed to argue, in closing, 
that the collection and retention of evidence from the crime 
scene had been careless, and that hairs collected at the crime 
scene, as well as the sock tied around the victim's neck, could 
have been tested for DNA but were not. 
 
In the circumstances, while the judge might well have 
admitted more of the proffered Bowden evidence, we discern no 
abuse of discretion in his decision otherwise. 
 
c.  Constitutional claim.  As noted, the opportunity to 
present third-party culprit evidence "is of constitutional 
dimension."  Silva-Santiago, supra at 804 n.26.  This 
constitutional dimension stems from the right, guaranteed by the 
United States Constitution, to "a meaningful opportunity to 
present a complete defense."  Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. at 
690, quoting California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 485.  
Similarly, but more broadly, art. 12 of the Massachusetts 
Declaration of Rights provides that "every subject shall have a 
24 
right to produce all proofs, that may be favourable to him."  
The defendant argues that if the Massachusetts doctrine 
concerning third-party culprit evidence permitted the judge to 
exclude the evidence proffered in this case, then that doctrine 
is consequently unconstitutional.  This argument is unavailing. 
 
The United States Supreme Court has held that the right to 
present a defense is "abridged by evidence rules that 
'infring[e] upon a weighty interest of the accused' and are 
'arbitrary' or 'disproportionate to the purposes they are 
designed to serve.'"  Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 
324-325 (2006), quoting United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 
308 (1998) (alteration in original).  Our jurisprudence 
concerning the circumstances in which third-party culprit 
evidence may be excluded is consistent with these strictures.  
See Commonwealth v. Smith, 461 Mass. 438, 446-447 (2012); 
Commonwealth v. Ruell, 459 Mass. 126, 131-133 (2011).  We have 
permitted the exclusion of such evidence in view of concerns 
with limited probative value, unfair prejudice, confusion of the 
issues, and misleading the jury.  See Silva-Santiago, supra at 
801.  The Court in Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. at 326, 
recognized that these considerations are not "arbitrary," 
stating that "well-established rules of evidence permit trial 
judges to exclude evidence if its probative value is outweighed 
by certain other factors such as unfair prejudice, confusion of 
25 
the issues, or potential to mislead the jury."  More 
specifically, the Court quoted a "widely accepted" rule that, 
while the "accused may introduce any legal evidence tending to 
prove that another person may have committed the crime with 
which the defendant is charged," such evidence "may be excluded 
where it does not sufficiently connect the other person to the 
crime, as, for example, where the evidence is speculative or 
remote."  Id. at 327, quoting 40A Am. Jur. 2d, Homicide § 286, 
at 136–138 (1999). 
 
The standards we have described here and in prior cases are 
thus not "arbitrary."  They also are not "disproportionate to 
the purposes they are designed to serve," Holmes v. South 
Carolina, 547 U.S. at 324-325, quoting United States v. 
Scheffer, 532 U.S. at 308, particularly given our insistence 
that all doubts concerning evidence "of substantial probative 
value" that "will not tend to prejudice or confuse . . . should 
be resolved in favor of admissibility," see Silva-Santiago, 
supra at 801, quoting Commonwealth v. Conkey, 443 Mass. at 66.  
There was no error. 
 
4.  Prosecutor's closing argument.  The defendant argues 
that certain statements in the prosecutor's closing argument 
were improper.  He focuses on the fact that, after successfully 
requesting that the judge exclude the defendant's proffered 
third-party culprit evidence, the prosecutor pointed out that no 
26 
evidence of that type had been presented.  Because the defendant 
did not object to the prosecutor's argument, we review for a 
substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice. 
 
We have held that: 
"Counsel may not, in closing, 'exploit[] the absence of 
evidence that had been excluded at his request.'  Such 
exploitation of absent, excluded evidence is 'fundamentally 
unfair' and 'reprehensible.'  '[A] party's success in 
excluding evidence from the consideration of the jury does 
not later give that party license to invite 
inferences . . . regarding the excluded evidence.'" 
 
Commonwealth v. Harris, 443 Mass. 714, 732 (2005), quoting 
Commonwealth v. Carroll, 439 Mass. 547, 555 (2003), Commonwealth 
v. Haraldstad, 16 Mass. App. Ct. 565, 568 (1983), and 
Commonwealth v. Mosby, 11 Mass. App. Ct. 1, 9 (1980) 
(alterations in original).  Here, a number of the prosecutor's 
remarks invited precisely such a prohibited inference, and 
should not have been made.  The prosecutor argued: 
 
"There's nothing about [the victim's] life that would 
give anybody who knew her a motive to kill her.  It is a 
rape/murder by a stranger. 
 
 
"You know from her life she's a regular [eighteen] 
year old living a regular [eighteen] year old's life.  She 
was not making risky choices.  She does not have risky 
friends.  She is not engaging in risky behavior. . . . 
 
 
"So when she walked that night . . . , she was walking 
as an innocent young woman.  A woman without enemies.  A 
woman without people who would have a motive to kill her.  
A woman who had done nothing herself to cause this." 
 
 
These comments, and especially the prosecutor's statements 
that the victim "was not making risky choices" and was "not 
27 
engaging in risky behavior," would not have seemed plausible had 
the defendant's proffered third-party culprit and Bowden 
evidence been admitted.  In this sense, the prosecutor's 
argument "exploit[ed] the absence of evidence that had been 
excluded at his request."  See Commonwealth v. Harris, supra, 
quoting Commonwealth v. Carroll, supra. 
 
We conclude, however, that there is no substantial 
likelihood that a miscarriage of justice occurred.  In 
Commonwealth v. Harris, supra, we stated: 
"In determining whether an error in closing argument 
requires reversal, we consider whether defense counsel made 
a timely objection; whether the judge's instructions 
mitigated the error; whether the error was central to the 
issues at trial or concerned only collateral matters; 
whether the jury would be able to sort out any excessive 
claims or hyperbole; and whether the Commonwealth's case 
was so strong that the error would cause no prejudice." 
 
Consideration of these factors, and particularly the degree to 
which the error was "central to the issues at trial" and the 
strength of the Commonwealth's case, leads us to conclude that 
reversal is not required.  First, the prosecutor's remarks 
concerning the victim's lack of "risky behavior" were not a key 
element of his closing argument.  Unlike the prosecutor in 
Commonwealth v. Haraldstad, 16 Mass. App. Ct. at 568, the 
prosecutor here did not extensively "mine[] th[e] vein" created 
by the excluded testimony.  His argument focused on the evidence 
that the defendant's sperm was found in the victim's body and on 
28 
her clothing; that the pattern of the sperm indicated, according 
to the Commonwealth's expert, that it had been deposited 
approximately when and where the victim had died; and that, 
according to the individuals closest to the victim, she had 
never been with older men or with men who did not speak Spanish.  
The prosecutor also devoted much of his argument to countering 
the defendant's efforts to minimize the prosecution's case, and 
to recounting the brutality of the murder. 
 
In addition, the jury heard some evidence that tended to 
support the prosecutor's characterization of the victim's past.  
The victim's sister testified that the victim did not go out 
often, at least with her; and a friend of the victim testified 
that the victim "seemed to take care of herself.  She used to 
dress like any young girl, you know, and she used to be clean.  
She used to keep to herself, I think." 
 
In the circumstances, the prosecutor's misguided remarks 
did not undermine the fundamental fairness of the trial.  "[W]e 
are substantially confident that, if the error had not been 
made, the jury verdict would have been the same."  Commonwealth 
v. Ruddock, 428 Mass. 288, 292 n.3 (1998).  We leave that 
verdict undisturbed.13 
                     
 
13 In his reply brief, the defendant suggests that the 
prosecutor's closing argument mocked the defendant's name and 
 
29 
 
5.  Instructions to the alternate juror.  The defendant 
argues that the judge erred in his instructions to the 
reconstituted jury, after an original deliberating juror had 
been discharged, concerning the question posed by the original 
jury and the judge's answer to it.  The defendant argues that 
the judge's instruction undercut his directive that the 
reconstituted jury must begin its deliberations anew.  Although 
the defendant did not object to the instruction at trial, he now 
contends that it amounted to a structural error that requires 
reversal without a showing of prejudice.  See Commonwealth v. 
Smith, 403 Mass. 489, 493 (1988). 
 
"If a judge determines that the substitution of an 
alternate juror is appropriate, then the judge . . . must 
instruct the jury to disregard all prior deliberations and begin 
its deliberations again."  Commonwealth v. Haywood, 377 Mass. 
755, 770 (1979).  See Commonwealth v. Carnes, 457 Mass. 812, 829 
(2010); Commonwealth v. Smith, 403 Mass. at 492.  The judge 
provided such instructions in this case, stating: 
 
"[O]nce we have a new deliberating juror . . . you 
must start your deliberations all over again.  I appreciate 
you have not been deliberating for long, but you must start 
anew because you now constitute a new jury of twelve 
deliberating jurors.  And you must all start from the 
                                                                  
appealed to racial prejudice.  We see no support for these 
contentions in the record. 
30 
beginning so that everyone can hear and share and discuss 
this case anew. . . . 
 
 
"[L]et me repeat, ladies and gentlemen of the new 
deliberating jury, you are to start your deliberations 
anew, afresh, start over again."14 
 
These emphatic instructions were not undermined by the judge's 
discussion of the question that had been asked by the original 
jury and answered on the previous day.  The judge said: 
 
"[T]here was a note that was given to me by the 
deliberating jury with a question.  I answered that 
question.  The note and the question are with the jury and 
should be shared with our new juror as well so he is up to 
speed on communications that our deliberating jury has had 
with the court." 
 
 
Contrary to the defendant's characterizations of these 
statements, the judge did not instruct the jury to broach any 
previous discussions with the new juror.  Rather, he directed 
that the jury's written question, and presumably the judge's 
written response, be "shared" with the new juror.  This 
directive was proper.  The judge's written answer to the jury's 
question was, in essence, an addendum to the instructions that 
                     
 
14 In addition, before determining which jurors would serve 
as alternates, the judge stated:  "If during the course of the 
jury's deliberations a deliberating [juror] for good and 
sufficient reason is excused by the court, then . . . one of the 
alternates will be drawn at random to replace that deliberating 
juror and the jury[,] which will now constitute [a] new group of 
[twelve] individuals[,] will be instructed to begin its 
deliberations all over again in order that the new juror be a 
full participant and listen to and be able to speak about the 
evidence in this case." 
31 
the judge had given in the presence of all the jurors, before 
the alternates were selected and before the jury began to 
deliberate.  It was appropriate that the new juror be provided 
with this additional instruction, just as it would have been 
appropriate for the alternate jurors to be present had the judge 
answered the jury's question in open court rather than by means 
of a note.  No reasonable jurors would have read into the 
judge's instruction permission to share prior deliberations with 
the new juror, or to continue the original jury's deliberations 
instead of beginning anew.15 
 
6.  Review pursuant to G. L. c. 278, §§ 33E. We have 
reviewed the entire record and conclude that there is no basis 
to exercise our authority pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to 
reduce the verdict of murder in the first degree or to order a 
new trial. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
                     
 
15 Because there was no error, we do not reach the question 
whether failure to comply with Commonwealth v. Haywood, 377 
Mass. 755 (1979), could, in some circumstances, represent 
structural error.