Title: Davis v. Commonwealth

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-13281 
 
MATTHEW DAVIS  vs.  COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 
January 12, 2023. 
 
 
Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts.  
Constitutional Law, Double jeopardy.  Practice, Criminal, 
Mistrial, Double jeopardy.  Armed Assault with Intent to 
Murder.  Evidence, Identity.  Global Positioning System 
Device. 
 
 
The petitioner, Matthew Davis, appeals from a judgment of a 
single justice of this court denying his petition for 
extraordinary relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, in which he 
sought a determination that a third trial in the underlying 
criminal cases against him impermissibly would violate his 
protections against double jeopardy, where, he contends, the 
evidence presented at his second trial, which ended in a 
mistrial, was insufficient to convict him.  For the reasons 
below, we affirm the decision of the single justice. 
 
Prior proceedings.  Davis was convicted by a jury of armed 
assault with intent to murder, G. L. c. 265, § 18 (b), and 
related charges, in connection with a shooting that occurred on 
September 15, 2015.  See Commonwealth v. Davis, 487 Mass. 448, 
449 (2021).  The Appeals Court initially affirmed the 
convictions.  See Commonwealth v. Davis, 97 Mass. App. Ct. 633, 
646 (2020).  On further appellate review, this court held that 
the evidence was sufficient to support Davis's conviction, and 
further, that it was permissible to admit location data from the 
global positioning system (GPS) device worn by him at the time 
in connection with his probation on a Federal drug charge.  
Davis, 487 Mass. at 449, 459-460, 461-464.  Nevertheless, this 
court held that it was an abuse of discretion amounting to 
prejudicial error for the trial court to admit evidence of speed 
2 
 
 
 
data from the particular GPS device worn by Davis1 based on the 
insufficient proffer made below.  Id. at 456-459, 460-461.  
Specifically, because Davis's speed, in tandem with other 
evidence in the trial record, was used to correlate his 
movements to the time and place of the shooting, this court set 
aside the verdicts against Davis and remanded the case for a new 
trial in the Superior Court.  Id. at 461, 469. 
 
After remand, the trial judge rejected a further proffer 
from the Commonwealth as to the GPS speed data, and Davis was 
retried without it; but the jury could not reach a decision, and 
so a mistrial resulted.  Davis then filed a posttrial motion 
asking for a required finding of not guilty or, alternatively, 
for dismissal.  He argued that the evidence produced at the 
second trial was not sufficient to convict him, and therefore, a 
third trial would impermissibly violate his protections against 
double jeopardy.  The trial judge denied the motion. 
 
Davis then sought relief by petition to a single justice of 
this court under G. L. c. 211, § 3.  Specifically, he sought 
allowance of his motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds 
due to insufficient evidence.  The petition was denied, and he 
appealed.  Pursuant to S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as amended, 434 Mass. 
1301 (2001), Davis filed a memorandum in this court, arguing 
that review of the trial judge's denial of his motion on double 
jeopardy grounds could not adequately be obtained on appeal from 
any final adverse judgment in a further trial or by other 
available means.  We agreed and issued an order permitting the 
appeal to proceed to full briefing in the ordinary course.  The 
appeal is now before us for decision. 
 
Summary of relevant facts.  "Because [Davis] raises a 
sufficiency challenge, we recite the facts the jury could have 
 
1 The "ExactuTrack 1" (ET1), manufactured by BI, Inc., 
purported to show both the location of Davis and the speed at 
which he was traveling.  See Davis, 487 Mass. at 449.  We held 
that the judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting the 
location data because said data was the product of a reliable 
testing protocol.  Id. at 460.  As to the ET1's ability to 
measure speed, however, we noted that the device had "never been 
formally tested" for that purpose.  Id. at 457.  Consequently, 
there was "no known error rate" for speed measurements taken on 
the ET1, nor had those measurements been subject to any form of 
peer review.  Id.  We therefore concluded that, as to speed, the 
Commonwealth had not shown sufficiently the reliability of the 
device.  Id. at 457-458. 
3 
 
 
 
found, in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, 
reserving certain details for later discussion."  Davis, 487 
Mass. at 450.  As in Davis's first trial, in his second trial 
"[t]he Commonwealth primarily relied on three pieces of evidence 
to establish the defendant's guilt:"  the GPS data, a 
surveillance video recording, and the testimony of eyewitness 
Ilene Rock.  See id. at 462.  This time, for the reasons stated 
above, the GPS evidence was limited to GPS location data because 
GPS speed data was excluded. 
 
Here, in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the 
jury could have found the following facts.  The GPS location 
evidence placed Davis at Quincy Street and Baker Avenue at 
10:27 A.M. on the day of the shooting.2  At 10:28 A.M., a 911 
call received in connection with this incident reported "shots 
fired."  At approximately 10:28 A.M or 10:29 A.M., a dispatcher 
informed Boston police via radio that shots had been fired and 
called responding officers to Quincy Street and Baker Avenue, 
the site of the shooting.  Video evidence from a home security 
camera showed that the shooter was a Black man with long braids 
or dreadlocks wearing a red or pink shirt or sweatshirt. 
 
The video evidence further showed that after firing a gun, 
the shooter in the red shirt immediately fled on Baker Avenue in 
the direction of Bodwell Street.  The GPS location evidence 
places Davis at the corner of Baker Avenue and Bodwell Street at 
10:28 A.M. 
 
Rock testified that a little bit before 10:30 A.M., she was 
standing at the corner of Bodwell Street and Columbia Road when 
someone ran past her very quickly.  This person was only five 
feet from her as he passed, running from the direction of 
Bodwell Street to Columbia Road.  This direction of travel 
matches the reported location points from Davis's GPS device for 
10:28 A.M. and 10:29 A.M. 
 
Rock described the runner as a tall, thin Black man wearing 
a long-sleeved red shirt whose hair was in thin braids "that 
were sort of pulled back in a ponytail."  He was running very 
quickly even though he was not wearing running shoes, and though 
 
2 Regarding the accuracy of the ET1 device, the manager of 
product development at BI, Inc., James Buck, testified at trial 
that the ET1 reports the longitude and latitude of the wearer 
once every minute using GPS technology.  Buck also testified 
that according to BI, Inc.'s product manual, the ET1 generally 
is accurate to within thirty meters, or ninety feet. 
4 
 
 
 
running, his right hand was tucked into his shirt or pocket such 
that it was hidden, and this fact struck the witness as 
peculiar.  Rock did not see anyone else running in that area at 
the time.  The GPS location evidence placed Davis on Columbia 
Road at 10:29 A.M. 
 
Davis was arrested the day after the shooting.  A week 
later, detectives executed a search warrant at his residence and 
recovered a red sweatshirt in a pile of clothing.  The 
sweatshirt tested negative for the presence of gunshot primer 
residue. 
 
Discussion.  "We review a decision of a single justice 
pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, for clear error of law or abuse 
of discretion."  Nicholas-Taylor v. Commonwealth, 490 Mass. 552, 
556 (2022). 
 
"Following a mistrial, double jeopardy precludes the 
Commonwealth from retrying a defendant for the same offense 
where the evidence presented at the [previous] trial was legally 
insufficient to warrant a conviction."  Baxter v. Commonwealth, 
489 Mass. 504, 507 (2022).  "[T]he Commonwealth may retry a 
defendant only if it has presented evidence at the [previous] 
trial that, if viewed in the light most favorable to the 
Commonwealth, would be sufficient for a rational trier of fact 
to find the defendant guilty of the crime charged beyond a 
reasonable doubt" (alteration and citation omitted).  Pinney v. 
Commonwealth, 479 Mass. 1001, 1001-1002 (2018).  See 
Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-677 (1979).  The 
Commonwealth does not need to introduce direct evidence to meet 
this standard.  See Davis, 487 Mass. at 462.  "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; [they] need not 
be necessary or inescapable.'"  Id., quoting Commonwealth v. 
Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 141 (2001).  Where the evidence is 
circumstantial, all reasonable inferences must be drawn in favor 
of the Commonwealth.  See Commonwealth v. Jones, 477 Mass. 307, 
316 (2017).  Even so, a conviction may not be based on 
"speculation" or "conjecture," Commonwealth v. Ayala, 481 Mass. 
46, 51 (2018), or "inference piled upon inference," Jones, 
supra. 
 
Here, the only question is the identity of the assailant.  
And the evidence was not direct but circumstantial.  Therefore, 
we ask whether, in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, 
a rational trier of fact could reasonably infer from the 
5 
 
 
 
evidence that Davis was the shooter.  See Baxter, 489 Mass. at 
509; Ayala, 481 Mass. at 51-53; Jones, 477 Mass. at 316-318. 
 
In this case, a rational trier of fact reasonably could 
infer that Davis was the shooter.  From the 911 and radio calls, 
a rational trier of fact could reasonably infer that the 
shooting occurred at about 10:28 A.M., or immediately before, at 
Quincy Street and Baker Avenue.  From the video, a rational 
trier of fact could conclude that the shooter then fled on Baker 
Avenue toward Bodwell Street.  Moreover, just before 10:30 A.M., 
when Rock saw a man at Bodwell Street and Columbia Road, a 
rational trier of fact reasonably could conclude that this was 
the shooter, as he was a Black man with his hair in braids and 
wearing a red shirt, he was running, and he was concealing what 
her testimony suggests was a firearm. 
 
The time-stamped GPS location evidence with respect to each 
of these three times and locations supports an inference that 
Davis was the shooter.  First, it places Davis at Quincy Street 
and Baker Avenue at 10:27 A.M.  This puts him at the scene of 
the shooting at what reasonably can be inferred to be the time 
of the shooting. 
 
Second, the GPS location evidence places Davis at the 
corner of Baker Avenue and Bodwell Street at 10:28 A.M.  
Importantly, the video shows that after firing his gun, the 
shooter in the red shirt immediately fled on Baker Avenue in the 
direction of Bodwell Street. 
 
Third, the GPS location evidence places Davis on Columbia 
Road at 10:29 A.M.  To reach this location most directly from 
the intersection of Baker Avenue and Bodwell Street, a person 
would need to travel on Bodwell Street to Columbia Road, passing 
through the intersection where Rock encountered the shooter 
wearing the red shirt.  See Davis, 487 Mass. at 463 ("The 
runner's path matched the defendant's GPS device's tracked 
movements").3 
 
Last, investigators searching Davis's residence following 
the shooting recovered a red sweatshirt.  That sweatshirt was 
 
3 There is a slight margin of error for the GPS location 
data such that the actual time might be within the forty-five 
seconds preceding the time recorded by the GPS.  But this time 
difference does nothing to undermine the above inferences, which 
the jury might reasonably have drawn.  See Davis, 487 Mass. at 
462 n.17. 
6 
 
 
 
introduced in evidence and is consistent with the shirt worn by 
the shooter as depicted in the video surveillance footage. 
 
In sum, a rational trier of fact could reasonably infer 
that Davis was the shooter because he was at the scene of the 
crime at the time it was committed, he traveled on the same 
street and in the same direction in which the shooter fled, and 
he ended up on Columbia Road, which suggests that he used 
Bodwell Street to get there and that he was the person in the 
red shirt with "thin braids" encountered by Rock.4  While each 
piece of circumstantial evidence, standing in isolation, may not 
constitute overwhelming evidence of his guilt, when presented 
sequentially, the "evidence of identification" in the instant 
matter is more than "sufficient to support a reasonable 
inference that the defendant was the [shooter]."  Baxter, 489 
Mass. at 509.  We reach this conclusion not by "piling inference 
upon inference," but through consideration of each discrete 
piece of evidence in a logical order, such as it might be 
presented to the trier of fact by a prosecutor (quotation and 
citation omitted).  Commonwealth v. Merry, 453 Mass. 653, 661 
(2009). 
 
To be sure, Rock failed to directly identify Davis as the 
shooter.  She explained that she did not get a good look at the 
man's face as he ran by her.  But even conflicting evidence, 
much less the piecemeal evidence here at issue, "does not demand 
a required finding of not guilty."  Pinney, 479 Mass. at 1003, 
quoting Merry, 453 Mass. at 461. 
 
In these circumstances, a rational trier of fact could 
reasonably infer from the evidence that Davis was the shooter, 
and the single justice did not commit a clear error of law or 
abuse his discretion in denying relief. 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
Matthew Spurlock, Committee for Public Counsel Services, 
for the petitioner. 
 
Ian MacLean, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
4 At trial, Davis's probation officer described him as 
having "dreads" around the time of the shooting that were "a 
little longer than shoulder length."  Subsequently, the officer 
positively identified a photograph of Davis at booking that 
showed him having a hairstyle of long thin braids.