Title: Commonwealth v. Paige

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-12806 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  JAMES PAIGE. 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     September 13, 2021. - December 6, 2021. 
 
Present:  Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ. 
 
 
Homicide.  Felony-Murder Rule.  Rape.  Evidence, Consciousness 
of guilt, Videotape.  Practice, Criminal, New trial, 
Assistance of counsel, Instructions to jury, Argument by 
prosecutor, Mistrial, Capital case. 
 
 
 
 
Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on June 27, 2016. 
 
 
The case was tried before Christopher J. Muse, J., and a 
motion for a new trial, filed on November 8, 2019, was 
considered by Christine M. Roach, J. 
 
 
 
Brian J. Kelly for the defendant. 
 
Julianne Campbell, Assistant District Attorney (Craig 
Iannini, Assistant District Attorney, also present) for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
LOWY, J.  A grand jury returned an indictment in 2016 
charging the defendant, James Paige, with murder in the first 
degree for the 1987 killing of Dora Brimage (victim).  A jury 
convicted the defendant of felony-murder in the first degree 
2 
 
with aggravated rape as the predicate offense.  The defendant 
appealed from his conviction.  While his appeal was pending, he 
moved for a new trial, arguing that the judge erred in failing 
to give an instruction about consciousness of guilt and the 
defendant's trial counsel was ineffective in failing to request 
such an instruction.  We remanded the motion to the Superior 
Court, where it was denied by another judge without a hearing, 
and the defendant appealed.  We consolidated the defendant's 
appeal from his conviction with his appeal from the denial of 
his motion for a new trial. 
 
Before this court, the defendant repeats his arguments 
pertaining to the lack of a consciousness of guilt instruction.  
He also argues there was insufficient evidence to support his 
conviction, that the prosecutor argued facts not in evidence 
during closing argument, that the judge should have declared a 
mistrial after the jury inadvertently were shown video footage 
unduly prejudicial to the defendant, and that we should reduce 
the verdict pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  We affirm. 
 
Facts.  Taking the evidence in the light most favorable to 
the Commonwealth, the jury could have found the following facts.  
See Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 677 (1979).  The 
victim was at a party in Boston in 1987.  She asked the 
defendant's brother for a ride from the party.  Another 
individual offered to drive the victim, but the defendant, who 
3 
 
did not know the victim, said forcefully that the victim would 
go with his brother and him.  The victim acted hesitant to get 
into the car, but she ultimately did so.  The defendant and his 
brother drove the victim to Georgia Street.  The defendant's 
brother was "upset" and "crying" the next morning. 
 
The day after the party, construction workers found the 
victim's body at an indoor work site adjacent to Georgia Street, 
where the defendant's brother and other members of the 
defendant's family worked.  The victim was on her back with her 
lower clothing, including her underwear, pulled down around one 
of her ankles.  Her head was injured severely such that it 
appeared she no longer had a face; she had died from blunt force 
injuries to the head and strangulation.  A construction shovel 
used to beat the victim was next to her, as was a piece that had 
broken off the shovel.  There was sperm in the victim's vagina 
that had been deposited within twenty-four hours of her death.  
There was no sperm on the victim's underwear. 
The murder investigation remained unsolved for decades, 
until Boston police reopened the case in 2013 after receiving 
Federal funding to solve cold cases using deoxyribonucleic acid 
(DNA) testing.  DNA testing revealed that the sperm in the 
victim's vagina matched the defendant's genetic profile. 
The defendant spoke with police in 1987 and 2015.  In 1987, 
the defendant told police he and his brother had dropped off the 
4 
 
victim at a club not near where the victim's body was found.  In 
2015, the defendant told police that he and his brother had 
driven the victim to Georgia Street.  The defendant also told 
police in 2015 that he never had had sexual intercourse with the 
victim. 
 
Discussion.  1.  Sufficiency of the evidence.  The 
defendant argues that there was insufficient evidence to support 
his conviction of felony-murder in the first degree with a 
predicate offense of aggravated rape.  He made the same argument 
at trial, moving unsuccessfully for a required finding of not 
guilty at the close of the Commonwealth's case and at the close 
of all the evidence.  We conclude that there was sufficient 
evidence to support the defendant's conviction. 
 
The denial of a motion for a required finding of not guilty 
will be affirmed if the Commonwealth's evidence, together with 
reasonable inferences from that evidence, is sufficient to 
persuade a "rational jury" of the defendant's guilt beyond a 
reasonable doubt.  Commonwealth v. Copeland, 481 Mass. 255, 259 
(2019).  See Latimore, 378 Mass. at 677.  The Commonwealth may 
prove its case using only circumstantial evidence, and the 
jury's inferences "need only be reasonable and possible, not 
necessary or inescapable" (citation and quotations omitted).  
Copeland, supra. 
5 
 
 
To prove felony-murder in the first degree with a predicate 
felony of aggravated rape, the Commonwealth had to prove that 
(1) the defendant committed or attempted to commit aggravated 
rape; (2) the death was caused by an act of the defendant in the 
commission or attempted commission of the aggravated rape; (3) 
the act that caused the death occurred during the commission or 
attempted commission of the aggravated rape; and (4) the 
defendant intended to kill the victim, intended to cause 
grievous bodily harm to the victim, or intended to do an act 
which, in the circumstances known to the defendant, a reasonable 
person would have known created a plain and strong likelihood 
that death would result.  Model Jury Instructions on Homicide 
59-60 (2018).  See Commonwealth v. Brown, 477 Mass. 805, 825 
(2017) (Gants, C.J., concurring). 
To prove aggravated rape, the Commonwealth had to show, as 
relevant here, that (1) the defendant had sexual intercourse 
with the victim; (2) the defendant compelled the victim to 
submit by force and against her will or compelled the victim to 
submit by threat of bodily injury; and (3) the sexual 
intercourse resulted in or was committed with acts resulting in 
serious bodily injury.1  G. L. c. 265, § 22 (a).  See 
Commonwealth v. Witkowski, 487 Mass. 675, 681-682 (2021). 
 
1 This third prong is one of several aggravating factors 
that turn rape into aggravated rape.  See G. L. c. 265, 
6 
 
 
The evidence at trial, taken in the light most favorable to 
the Commonwealth, showed that the defendant did not know the 
victim, that the defendant and his brother drove the victim to a 
street adjacent to where her body was found the next morning, 
that the victim's body was found at a construction site where 
the defendant's brother and other members of the defendant's 
family worked, that the defendant's sperm was deposited in the 
victim's vagina within twenty-four hours of the victim's death 
despite the defendant's statement to police that he had not had 
sexual intercourse with the victim, that no sperm was found on 
the victim's underwear, and that the victim was injured severely 
and died from blunt force injuries to the head and 
strangulation.  This evidence was sufficient to satisfy all the 
elements of felony-murder in the first degree with a predicate 
offense of aggravated rape. 
 
We take this opportunity to raise concerns about our 
holding in another case where the victim had sex with the 
defendant proximate to suffering severe and fatal injuries.  See 
Commonwealth v. Scesny, 472 Mass. 185, 192-193 (2015).  In that 
case, the victim died by strangulation, two of her teeth were 
broken off, she had blood in her mouth, and there were injuries 
to various other parts of her body.  Id. at 188.  We concluded 
 
§ 22 (a).  Here, the only aggravating factor on which the judge 
instructed the jury was serious bodily injury. 
7 
 
that there was insufficient evidence of aggravated rape, 
although we also decided that there was sufficient evidence of 
murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate 
premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty.  Id. at 192-193.  
With respect to the charge of aggravated rape, we reasoned that 
the Commonwealth had not proved the necessary lack of consent 
because the victim's clothing had not been ripped, her genitalia 
and anus had not been injured, and the victim may have been 
acting as a prostitute the evening she was killed.2  Id. at 193.  
We thus concluded that "there was no evidence favoring the 
inference that the defendant raped the victim before killing her 
over the inference that he had consensual sex with the victim 
and then killed her."  Id. at 193-194. 
Where there is evidence of sexual intercourse between the 
defendant and the victim alongside a homicide, that alone is 
insufficient to prove felony-murder.  We now conclude, however, 
that where there is evidence that the defendant severely injured 
and killed the victim proximate to having sex with the victim, 
 
2 Evidence that an individual is a prostitute does not 
enhance the likelihood of consent.  Indeed, it may well be that 
prostitutes are more likely to be raped than other individuals.  
See Commonwealth v. Harris, 443 Mass. 714, 737 (2005) (Marshall, 
C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("Prostitutes 
are frequent victims of rape.  Yet societal beliefs persist that 
prostitutes cannot be raped, or that they are not harmed by 
rape, or that they somehow deserve to be raped" [citation 
omitted]). 
8 
 
the jury may infer that the victim did not consent to the sexual 
intercourse.  See Commonwealth v. Waters, 420 Mass. 276, 280 
(1995) (sufficient evidence of lack of consent where, among 
other things, victim had had sexual intercourse and was stabbed 
twenty-six times while alive).  See also People v. Story, 45 
Cal. 4th 1282, 1298-1299 (2009) ("the circumstance that 
defendant strangled [the victim] to death strongly evidences 
lack of consent to sexual intercourse.  It is possible . . . 
that the two engaged in consensual sex, then defendant strangled 
her for no apparent reason.  But the jury was not compelled to 
so find.  The strangulation strongly suggests absence of 
consent"). 
 
2.  Consciousness of guilt instruction.  The defendant 
argues, as he did in his motion for a new trial, that the judge 
should have instructed on consciousness of guilt, and his trial 
counsel was ineffective for failing to request such an 
instruction.  The Commonwealth requested a consciousness of 
guilt instruction at trial, pointing to the defendant's changing 
story to police about where he dropped off the victim the night 
before her body was discovered and the defendant's lying to 
police about having had sex with the victim.  The judge was 
reluctant to give the instruction because he considered the 
discrepancies to be "inconsistent statement[s]" rather than 
"consciousness of guilt."  The judge said he would not give the 
9 
 
instruction unless defense counsel wanted it, and defense 
counsel responded he did not. 
According to the defendant, a consciousness of guilt 
instruction would have benefited him by notifying the jury that 
false statements need not indicate consciousness of guilt and 
evidence of consciousness of guilt alone is insufficient to 
support a conviction.  See Commonwealth v. Toney, 385 Mass. 575, 
585 (1982).  We discern no error in either defense counsel's 
strategic decision not to request the instruction or the judge's 
decision not to give it. 
 
"[A] defense attorney, as a matter of trial tactics, might 
not want to request a consciousness of guilt charge because it 
would not assist the defendant's case to have the judge focus 
the jury's attention on such matters" (citation and alterations 
omitted).  Commonwealth v. Billingslea, 484 Mass. 606, 629 
(2020).  That was defense counsel's rationale here.  In an 
affidavit submitted in support of the defendant's motion for a 
new trial, defense counsel explained:  "I felt that an 
instruction on consciousness of guilt . . . would be more 
harmful than helpful to the defense by calling the attention of 
the jury to the issue, such that I made a tactical decision to 
ask that it not be given."  This tactical decision was not 
unreasonable.  See Commonwealth v. Kolenovic, 471 Mass. 664, 674 
(2015) ("Where, as here, the defendant's ineffective assistance 
10 
 
of counsel claim is based on a tactical or strategic decision, 
the test is whether the decision was 'manifestly unreasonable' 
when made" [quotation and citation omitted]).  Moreover, the 
judge was not required to give a consciousness of guilt 
instruction in the face of defense counsel's tactical decision 
not to request one.  See Billingslea, supra at 630 ("Because the 
defendant did not request a consciousness of guilt instruction, 
and the judge properly exercised sound discretion, we find no 
error"). 
The motion for a new trial properly was denied. 
 
3.  Commonwealth's closing argument.  The defendant asserts 
that the prosecutor stated improperly in closing argument that 
the lack of semen on the victim's underwear was evidence that 
she did not stand up after having sex with the defendant.  We 
disagree. 
 
The prosecutor stated in his closing argument that "they 
probably found no semen in [the victim's] underwear for two 
reasons . . . .  One, she never had a chance to put her 
underwear back on[,] and [t]wo, she never got off the floor 
after [the defendant] was done with her."  This argument was a 
permissible inference grounded in the testimony at trial and the 
jurors' common sense.  See Commonwealth v. Paradise, 405 Mass. 
141, 152 (1989) ("The prosecutor is entitled to argue the 
evidence and fair inferences to be drawn therefrom"). 
11 
 
An employee with the Boston police department's crime 
laboratory testified that semen could "flow down into the crotch 
area of the underwear," and there was evidence that the victim 
was found with her underwear pulled down around one of her 
ankles.  It is a reasonable inference from this evidence that 
there was no semen on the victim's underwear because the victim 
never pulled up her underwear or got off the ground.  See 
Commonwealth v. Perkins, 450 Mass. 834, 837-838 (2008) ("Because 
death had occurred while [the victim] was lying on her back, and 
because no sperm cells were found on the crotch area of her 
panties, death probably occurred after intercourse and before 
[the victim] could pull up her clothes such that her panties 
would collect sperm cells draining from her body").  There was 
no error. 
 
4.  Motion for mistrial.  The defendant asserts that the 
judge should have granted the defendant's motion for a mistrial 
after the Commonwealth inadvertently showed the jury video 
footage unduly prejudicial to the defendant.  We conclude that 
the judge did not abuse his discretion in denying the 
defendant's motion.  See Commonwealth v. Wiggins, 477 Mass. 732, 
741 (2017). 
At trial, the Commonwealth attempted to play for the jury a 
redacted video recording of the defendant's 2015 interview with 
police.  The Commonwealth instead played an unredacted version 
12 
 
of the recording in which the defendant said, "I don't 
understand why I should be having more cases," and a detective 
referred to the defendant as being "in custody." 
The defendant moved for a mistrial.  The judge asked 
counsel to brief the relevant issues so that he could rule on 
the motion the next day.  The judge also conferred with counsel 
about whether to tell the jury that he would dismiss them early 
because the Commonwealth had played an unredacted recording.  
Defense counsel said, "No, I don't want that, Judge, because it 
gives the impression that we have something to hide."  The judge 
responded, "All right, then I won't." 
The next day, the judge explained to counsel that he had 
not ruled on the motion on the day it had been made because he 
had not been prepared to give a "carefully craft[ed]" curative 
instruction.  He then denied the defendant's motion and stated 
to the jury, in part, 
"So yesterday even though best efforts were made, part of 
the video that was shown to you had segments in it which 
were not admissible, and through no deliberate or intended 
conduct it simply was a mistake.  That's what all the 
parties agree. 
 
"And if you remember, there was two or three or four or 
five minutes of video presentation where the Boston Police 
officers introduced themselves to the defendant who was 
sitting in an interview room in the Manchester Police 
Department building.  That was the scene that you saw.  
 
. . . 
 
13 
 
"I'm going to ask you to completely wipe out any 
recollection of anything that you saw yesterday on the 
video.  I'm going to ask you to discipline yourselves to 
make sure that you don't even think about it or consider it 
or review [it].  I'm going to ask that if it creeps into 
your consciousness in any way, that you will firmly to 
yourself say that's not important, it's not relevant, I 
can't consider it.  It's not part of this case." 
 
 
"When a jury have been exposed to inadmissible evidence, 
the judge may rely on a curative instruction to correct any 
error and to remedy any prejudice.  As long as the judge's 
instructions are prompt and the jury do not again hear the 
inadmissible evidence a mistrial is unnecessary" (quotations, 
citations, and alterations omitted).  Commonwealth v. Durand, 
475 Mass. 657, 668 (2016), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 259 (2017).  
Here, the judge's excellent instruction, given before the 
parties presented additional evidence, cured any prejudice to 
the defendant.  The judge no doubt would have given an 
instruction sooner if defense counsel had not asked him to 
refrain from doing so.  In any event, the instruction was given 
promptly.  See Commonwealth v. Amirault, 404 Mass. 221, 237 
(1989) ("that the judge instructed the jury to disregard the 
prosecutor's comment a day after the closing arguments does not 
render the instruction ineffective"). 
 
The motion for a mistrial properly was denied. 
14 
 
 
5.  Review under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  Having reviewed the 
entire record, we decline to reduce the verdict to a lesser 
degree of guilt or order a new trial. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Order denying motion for a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  new trial affirmed. 
 
 
CYPHER, J. (concurring).  I join the court's opinion in its 
entirety.  I write separately to more firmly reject our 
reasoning in Commonwealth v. Scesny, 472 Mass. 185 (2015), and 
to address the continuing epidemic of violence against women, 
including femicide.  We have not used the term "femicide" in our 
case law, but I think it should be recognized as a distinct 
phenomenon.  To illustrate the importance of this language, and 
to frame the discussion of Scesny, I address femicide generally, 
the historical sexism of the common law, and the prevalence of 
femicide today. 
Femicide is the intentional killing of a woman because she 
is a woman.1  Because the victims of femicide are targeted based 
on their sex, femicide may be understood as a type of hate 
crime.  See Taylor, Note, Treating Male Violence Against Women 
as a Bias Crime, 76 B.U. L. Rev. 575, 576-577 (1996).  The 
violence of these offenses serves to terrorize the victims and, 
thus, to subjugate women as a group.  Id. at 585-586.  As such, 
hate crimes exact a greater toll on society and women, both 
individually and as a group, than isolated incidents of 
violence.  Id. at 586. 
 
 
1 Various definitions of femicide are used by different 
groups.  For a more comprehensive overview of definitions, see 
Femicide Watch, The Must-Knows on Femicide, http://femicide-
watch.org/readers/must-knows-femicide#item-10731 
[https://perma.cc/69F6-L5TH]. 
2 
 
Femicide also exists on a continuum of sexual violence, 
including sex trafficking, rape, aggravated rape, and sexual 
harassment.2  See J. Radford, Introduction, Femicide:  The 
Politics of Women Killing 3, 3 (J. Radford & D.E.H. Russell 
eds., 1992).  When any one of these forms of sexual violence 
results in death, a femicide has been committed.  Femicide is 
thus "the most extreme form of sexist terrorism, motivated by 
hatred, contempt, pleasure, or a sense of ownership of women."  
J. Caputi & D.E.H. Russell, Femicide:  Sexist Terrorism against 
Women, in Femicide:  The Politics of Women Killing 13, 15 (J. 
Radford & D.E.H. Russell eds., 1992).  Where, as here, the jury 
apparently found that the victim's murder stemmed from the same 
criminal episode as her aggravated rape, I believe it is 
appropriate to refer to her killing as a femicide. 
 
A brief, but necessarily incomplete, review of the legal 
history of the treatment of women is necessary to remind us of 
the context in which the crime of femicide arises.  In early 
 
 
2 This continuum necessarily also includes street 
harassment.  See Olney, Note, Toward a Socially Responsible 
Application of the Criminal Law to the Problem of Street 
Harassment, 22 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 129, 129 (2015).  Street 
harassment is a verbal or nonverbal act, committed in a public 
place, by a man toward a female stranger, generally regarding 
her appearance.  Id.  Street harassment invades women's privacy, 
creating "an environment of fear and sexual terrorism" 
(quotation and citation omitted).  Id. at 135.  Like other forms 
of sexual violence, it serves to perpetuate the subordination of 
women, while exacting a physical and psychological toll.  See 
id. at 136-137. 
3 
 
common law, women lacked an independent legal identity.  See 
Butler v. Ives, 139 Mass. 202, 203 (1885) ("at common law, 
husband and wife were regarded as one").  Known as the doctrine 
of coverture,3 a woman became, for legal purposes, her husband's 
chattel.  See Nolin v. Pearson, 191 Mass. 283, 284 (1906).  
Thus, when a wife was injured by another or enticed away by a 
lover, a husband could recover damages for the loss of his 
marital privileges.  Id. at 288.  This merger of husband and 
wife as one legal person allowed for violence against wives by 
their husbands.  While the Massachusetts Bay Colony prohibited a 
husband from beating his wife, he was permitted to "chastise" 
her.  Id. at 285.  Additionally, a husband could not, as a 
matter of law, rape his wife.  Commonwealth v. Chretien, 383 
Mass. 123, 127-128 (1981).  It was not until 1981 that this 
court expressly eliminated a husband's right to rape his wife.  
Id. at 132.4 
 
 
3 Under the common law's doctrine of coverture, a married 
woman became a "feme covert."  See D. Rowland, The Boundaries of 
Her Body:  The Troubling History of Women's Rights in America 17 
(2004).  Upon marriage, the feme covert's personal property 
became her husband's.  Id.  In 1845, the Massachusetts 
Legislature gave women the same rights as her husband to own and 
acquire property during their marriages.  St. 1845, c. 208, 
§§ 1, 3, 5. 
 
 
4 The court's decision in this case was interpreting G. L. 
c. 265, § 22, as amended by St. 1974, c. 474, § 7.  Chretien, 
383 Mass. at 129-130.  The 1974 amendment redefined the legal 
elements of rape and removed the prior common-law language.  Id.  
4 
 
 
Vestiges remain of the common law's subordination of women.  
While men no longer legally may abuse and rape their wives, 
women may be blamed for the violence inflicted upon them.  One 
example resides within the law of provocation, or "heat of 
passion" doctrine.  See Coker, Heat of Passion and Wife Killing:  
Men Who Batter/Men Who Kill, 2 S. Cal. Rev. L. & Women's Stud. 
71, 72 (1992).  This doctrine provides that murder may be 
mitigated to voluntary manslaughter where there is evidence that 
the defendant was provoked and lost his self-control in the heat 
of passion.  Commonwealth v. Andrade, 422 Mass. 236, 237 (1996).  
The discovery of infidelity is the prototypical form of 
provocation.  See id. at 237-238.  Although we have modified the 
law of provocation over the years,5 we have not eliminated its 
application.  This doctrine implies that the victim, by 
committing adultery, is partly to blame for the defendant's 
violence, and that the defendant was excused in the killing.  
 
By doing so, the court concluded that the Legislature abandoned 
the common-law spousal exclusion to rape.  Id. at 130. 
 
 
5 Many of these modifications concern what we will consider 
"adequate provocation."  For example, we held that a voluntary 
manslaughter instruction is not warranted where the discovery of 
spousal infidelity was over a period of months, rather than a 
sudden discovery.  Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 431 Mass. 804, 812 
(2000).  We also have held that evidence of the victim stalking 
the defendant is insufficient provocation.  Commonwealth v. 
Benson, 453 Mass. 90, 97 (2009).  Additionally, we repeatedly 
have held that insults and verbal arguments alone cannot create 
reasonable provocation.  Commonwealth v. Vatcher, 438 Mass. 584, 
588-589 (2003) (citing cases holding same). 
5 
 
Coker, supra at 101.  Where the law treats homicide as a 
reasonable reaction to infidelity, it condones femicide.6  
Femicide is thus already part of our jurisprudence. 
 
To use the term "femicide" also acknowledges its prevalence 
in our society at large.  Reliable data on the incidence of 
femicide is unfortunately lacking.  No official sources directly 
study male-on-female homicide or its motivations.  An analysis 
of cross-sex homicide rates generally, however, suggests that 
femicide is on the rise in the United States.  See Violence 
Policy Center, When Men Murder Women:  An Analysis of 2019 
Homicide Data 2 (Sept. 2021) ("Since reaching its low . . . in 
 
 
6 Although provocation is a sex-neutral doctrine, its sexism 
is evident when compared to the common law's reticence to accept 
battered woman syndrome.  Battered woman syndrome refers to the 
characteristics of a woman who has been abused physically and 
psychologically, which may induce her to kill or injure her male 
victim in self-defense.  Commonwealth v. Moore, 25 Mass. App. 
Ct. 63, 66 (1987).  While a pattern of abuse is undeniably more 
extreme than the discovery of infidelity, it was not until 1993 
that defendants in Massachusetts were permitted to introduce 
evidence of the syndrome.  See G. L. c. 233, § 23E, inserted by 
St. 1993, c. 477, § 1, recodified as G. L. c. 233, § 23F, by 
St. 1996, c. 450, § 248.  See also Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 
418 Mass. 1, 7 & n.7 (1994).  Before these statutory changes, 
courts across jurisdictions were reluctant to accept that the 
battered woman's actions could constitute self-defense.  See 
Comment, Killing One's Abuser:  Premeditation, Pathology, or 
Provocation?, 59 Emory L.J. 769, 774-775 (2010).  Courts took 
issue with the reasonableness and imminence elements of self-
defense, especially where the battered woman killed her abuser 
while he was sleeping.  Id. at 775.  As a matter of law, the 
abuse was not considered imminent, despite its consistent and 
ongoing nature, and the battered woman's actions were 
unreasonable.  Id.  In so holding, the law ignored and denied 
the battered woman's experience. 
6 
 
2014, the rate [of women murdered by men in incidents with one 
victim and one offender] has increased, with 2019's rate . . . 
up nine percent since 2014"). 
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime 
Reporting (UCR) Program provides the primary source of data on 
such homicides.  Yet the UCR receives its data voluntarily from 
law enforcement agencies across the country and consequently 
does not include all offenses.7  Additionally, the data lacks 
important context, including how many of the killings by men 
were an extension of other violence against women and how many 
of the killings by women were committed in self-defense. 
Nonetheless, the FBI's data record the age, sex, race, and 
ethnicity of the murder victim and the offender, as well as 
known information about the circumstances of the murder.8  The 
UCR shows that in the year 2019, there were 1,647 known killings 
of women committed by men, compared to 477 killings of men by 
women.9  The year before, there were 1,731 killings of women 
 
 
7 FBI, UCR Publications, https://www.fbi.gov/services 
/cjis/ucr [https://perma.cc/333C-4668]. 
 
 
8 FBI, 2019 Crime in the United States, https://ucr.fbi.gov 
/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-
pages/expanded-homicide [https://perma.cc/MS4M-F46H]. 
 
 
9 FBI, Expanded Homicide Data Table 6 (2019), 
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-
2019/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls 
[https://perma.cc/AC7E-8VHZ]. 
7 
 
committed by men.10  While these statistics paint a blurry 
portrait of femicide in the United States, they demonstrate that 
its occurrence is significant.11 
The paucity of statistics is partly to blame for femicide's 
lack of recognition.  More importantly, femicide also is ignored 
because of its finality.  As Jill Radford appropriately notes, 
"When a woman is killed, there may be no survivor to tell her 
story."  Radford, Introduction, Femicide:  The Politics of Women 
Killing at 4.  While there may be valid reasons for society's 
 
 
10 FBI, Expanded Homicide Data Table 6 (2018), 
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-
2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls 
[https://perma.cc/683L-ZYG2]. 
 
 
11 Indigenous communities in the United States are 
particularly susceptible to femicide.  The Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention (CDC) identify homicide as the sixth 
leading cause of death for indigenous women under forty-five 
years old.  CDC, CDC Works to Address Violence Against American 
Indian and Alaska Native People 1, https://www.cdc.gov/injury 
/pdfs/tribal/Violence-Against-Native-Peoples-Fact-Sheet.pdf 
[https://perma.cc/EQ5F-SRYV].  A study conducted by the Urban 
Indian Health Institute found 506 cases of missing and murdered 
indigenous women and girls across seventy-one selected cities.  
Urban Indian Health Institute, Missing and Murdered Indigenous 
Women & Girls:  A Snapshot of Data from 71 Urban Cities in the 
United States 6 (2018), https://www.uihi.org/wp-content/uploads 
/2018/11/Missing-and-Murdered-Indigenous-Women-and-Girls-
Report.pdf [https://perma.cc/6Y67-EFHH].  Of the known 
perpetrators, over eighty percent were male.  Id.  Despite its 
known prevalence, femicide largely is unreported and 
understudied in indigenous communities.  See id. at 4.  The 
Federal government, however, recently has committed to 
increasing the collection of indigenous homicide data.  See 
Savanna's Act, Pub. L. No. 116-165, § 2, 134 Stat. 760 (2020). 
8 
 
reluctance to relive the violent murders of women,12 the failure 
to do so risks femicide being forgotten or denied. 
It is in the context of this finality that I wish to make 
clear that I reject the reasoning in Commonwealth v. Scesny, 472 
Mass. at 193-194.  In both Scesny and the present case, the 
evidence tended to establish that in each case, the sexual 
encounter with and the killing of the victim were 
contemporaneous.  While it is certainly true that a killing may 
follow a consensual sexual encounter, that does not appear to 
have occurred in either case; each woman was apparently murdered 
so immediately after her rape that neither woman even had the 
chance to stand up after the assault.  Id. at 189-190.  
Nonetheless, in Scesny, we concluded that there was insufficient 
evidence of rape because its traditional indicia, such as torn 
clothing or injured genitalia, were absent.  Id. at 193. 
This reasoning obscures the context in which the rape 
occurred:  femicide.  When a killing takes place following a 
rape, the victim no longer can testify about the absence of 
consent in the sexual encounter.  She effectively has been 
 
 
12 See Radford, supra at 5 ("In many cultures coming to 
terms with death is considered a private matter.  Women who do 
speak out have had to be mindful of the impact their words may 
have on those close to the dead woman.  There is also the danger 
of being faced with the accusation of making 'political capital' 
out of grief.  For these reasons femicide is perhaps one of the 
most harrowing and sensitive dimensions of male violence for 
feminists to address."). 
9 
 
silenced.  In cases such as these, the jury must be permitted to 
infer from the evidence of a killing that the sexual encounter 
was nonconsensual.  This is not a "piling [of] 'inference upon 
inference'" or "conjecture and speculation."  Commonwealth v. 
Merry, 453 Mass. 653, 661 (2009), quoting Corson v. 
Commonwealth, 428 Mass. 193, 197 (1998).  These are reasonable 
inferences that the jury are entitled to draw.  Commonwealth v. 
Coonan, 428 Mass. 823, 829 (1999). 
Additionally, such inferences wholly are in line with our 
previous holdings that consent is not a defense to serious 
injuries allegedly inflicted during sexual encounters.  See 
Commonwealth v. Appleby, 380 Mass. 296, 297, 309-311 (1980) 
(rejecting defendant's argument that victim consented to assault 
and battery by means of dangerous weapon as part of 
sadomasochistic sexual relationship).  Analogously, consent is 
not present where the jury find that the sexual encounter took 
place at the same time as a violent killing. 
I also wish to address directly the implication that 
prostituted women are more likely to consent to a sexual 
encounter before being killed.  A prostituted woman is no more 
likely to do so than a nonprostituted woman.  Even outside the 
context of homicide, evidence that a woman is prostituted does 
not decrease the likelihood that she was raped.  Rather, studies 
suggest that prostituted women are more likely to be raped than 
10 
 
others.  See, e.g., Cooney, "They Don't Want to Include Women 
Like Me":  Sex Workers Say They're Being Left Out of the #MeToo 
Movement, Time (Feb. 13, 2018), https://time.com/5104951/sex-
workers-me-too-movement/ (although "[t]here are no 
comprehensive, up-to-date statistics on how many sex workers in 
the U.S. have experienced sexual violence," "[o]ne systematic 
review of research found that globally, sex workers have a 45% 
to 75% chance of experiencing . . . sexual violence on the 
job").  Additionally, evidence suggests that homicides occur 
with similar frequency alongside prostitution as they do 
alongside rape.  See FBI, Expanded Homicide Data Table 11 
(2019), https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-
u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11.xls 
[https://perma.cc/58LV-DA87] (listing twelve incidents of 
homicide occurring in context of prostitution and commercialized 
vice and eight homicides occurring in context of rape). 
Regardless whether the victims in Scesny and the present 
case were prostituted, I agree with the court that the jury 
should be permitted to infer that a sexual encounter was 
nonconsensual where it occurred contemporaneous with a killing.  
Permitting the jury to make such a finding acknowledges that 
femicide and rape both exist on a continuum of sexual violence.