NOTICE: Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule

23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass. App. Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28, as amended by 73 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties and, theref ore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire court and, therefore, represent only the views of the panel that decided the case. A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25, 2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran , 71 Mass. App. Ct. 258, 260 n.4 (2008). COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
APPEALS COURT 22

- P

- 1099
COMMONWEALTH

vs . LAMAAR MATTHEWS. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0 Following a bench trial in the Superior Court, the defendant was convicted of several charge s stemming from a home invasion and armed robbery. On appeal from the judgments of conviction , he claims the evidence was insufficient
. We affirm. Background
. The victims of the defendant's crimes were a father and son. On January 12, 2021, at approximately 1 A . M ., the son went to sleep in his bedroom located downstairs in his family's home
. He awoke when he heard his bedroom door creak open and then close. He turned on the flashlight on his red iPhone XR 1 (phone) , ope ned the door, and yelled " h ello. Hello." The son heard footsteps and saw a "shadow" come toward him. He closed his door, stood against it, and yelled for help. The

1 He kept the phone either on his person or in his bedroom when at home. He never let other people use his phone.2

door was pushed open, causing the son to f a ll
. A male intrude r entered the bedroom, took the phone from the son's hand, turned off the flashlight, and put it in his poc ket. In the darkened

room the son felt the ma n press an object that the son believed to be a knife into his stomach while the ma n repeatedly asked,
"w here the shit at." The son heard t h e father running toward his bedroom. The intruder got off of the son and left the bedroom. When the father reached the bottom of the stairs, he encountered a male intruder who was about the father 's height ; the ma n swu ng a knife at the father and told him to back up. The father yelled to his wife to "grab the gun." The intruder fled the house through the front door. The father then approached the son 's bedroom where he encountered a second male intruder coming out of th e room . The father described the second intruder as dark skinned and much shorter than the first intruder
. 2 The second

ma n also swung a knife , and then he fled the house through the back door. Several police officers were dispatched to the home ,

a rriving at approximately 2:50 A . M . While in route, police were

2 At trial, the father testified that both intruder s w ore "hoody" sweatshirts . Although he did not remember the color of the sweatshirts, the father acknowledged that he told police officers that the first ma n wore a gray one, and the second ma n wore a green one.3

told that the suspects were two Black me n . On this "extremely cold" night, officers did not see any individuals or cars in the surrounding area. At approximately 2:55 A . M ., police officer Colby Gallagher saw a ma n matching the suspect ' s desc ription abou t four tenths of one mile from the victims ' home. Gallagher did not see anyone else or any cars in the area at that time.
He stopped and spoke to th e ma n, who was sweating and breat hing heavily despite the cold temperature. The father was driven to the location and positively identified the ma n as the first of the two men he encountered in his home
. The suspect , a juvenile , 3 was arrested. Police asked the son to use the "Find My iPhone" application to track his stolen phone's location
. The son did

so ; the phone appeared to be at a location within one mile from the home
. At 3:47 A . M . , polic e officer Christopher Davis received a radio transmission about the potential location of the phone. He proceeded to a "heavily wooded" area where ther e were no streetlights or sidewalks
. Davis did not see any pedestrians or cars in the area
. He located the phone, with its

3 At booking, the juvenile's height was recorded as five feet ten in ches, and his weight as 130 pounds. A search warrant executed on the juvenile's cell phone showed three incoming calls between 3 A . M . and 3:20 A . M ., but police were unable to identify the caller. The juvenile received three text messages from a different number during the same time frame . Police were unable to identify the sender.4

flashli ght on, twenty to thirty feet into the woods, in some thorns and brush. Davis did not touch the p hone. The son ha d not been in this area , did not know anyone that lived in this area, never met the defendant, and never left his phone unattended in a publi c place or allowed a stranger to use it. Photographs of the phone and its location were taken by detective Daniel Barber
. Barber could not walk a straight line from the road to the location of the phone due to thick brush and thorns. He found the phone, flashlight on, twenty

- five to thirty feet into the woods, at the bottom of a thorn bush that

was undisturbed
. Wear ing gl oves, Barber removed the p hone from the brush , examined it, and noticed what appeared to be fingerprints. The son identified the phone as the one taken during the crime s . Subseq uent testing revealed five latent fingerprints on the p hone that match ed the defendant's fingerprints. 4 The defendant was arrested on April 28, 2021, at his home in the Dorchester section of Boston , approximately four months after the crime s . 5

4 There were two left index fingerprints, a left little fingerprint, a right middle fingerprint, and a right little fingerprint. The defendant was excluded as the source of one fingerprint. 5 The defendant's home was approximately twenty miles from the vic tims ' home. At booking, the defendant's height was recorded as five feet ten inches , and his weight as 160 pounds.5

Discussion
. As he did at trial, o n appeal, the defendant does not contest that his f ingerprints were on the phone. Rather, he claims that the evidence was insufficient to prove that his fingerprints were placed on the phone during the commission of the crime s . We are not persuaded. "In determining whether the Commonwealth met its burden to establish each element of the offense charged, we apply the familiar Latimore standard.
. . . '[The] question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the [Commonwealt h], any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. ' " Commonwealth v. Colas , 486 Mass. 831, 836 (2021), quoting Commonwealth v. Latimore , 378 Mass. 671, 677 (1979). Inferences may be drawn from t he evidence , but they "need not be necessary or inescapable, only reasonable and possible" (quotation and citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Schoener , 491 Mass. 706, 714 (2023). In a jury

- waived trial, it is presumed that the judge correctly instructed h erself on the law. See Commonwealth v. Qasim Q ., 491 Mass. 650, 664 (2023). Here, there was direct evidence that one of the intruders handled the son 's phone during the crime s . The son saw the ma n take the phone from his hands, turn off the flashlight, and put the phone in his poc ket. In addition, there was direct and circumstantial evidence that neither the son n or the father met6

or knew the defendant, and that the son never left his phone
unatte nded in a public place or allowed anyone to use it. This evidence, in combination with the defendant's fingerprints on the phone , sufficed to support a conclusion that the defendant

was one of the intruder s and that his fingerprints were impressed on the phone when he handled it during the crime s . See Commonwealth v. Morris , 422 Mass. 254, 257 (1996) ("Where , for example, there is evidence that a person touched an object, and it is later proved that the defendant's fingerprints were on th at object, an inf erence that the defendant was present at the time of the touching is warranted ")
. As in this case, when "the only identification evidence is the defendant's fingerprint at the crime scene, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the fing erprint was placed there during the crime ." Morris , 422 Mass. at 257
. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth , we also conclude that the Commonwealth met its burden to exclude the hypothesis that the defendant's fingerprints were impressed under innocent circumstances after the crime s . Police located the phone within o n e hour of the crime s , and within one mile of the victims ' home. The phone was found at the bottom of undistur bed brush with thorns , more than twenty feet from the side of the road . It was a heavily wooded

area that was difficult to navigate, had no streetlights or7

sidewalks, and there was little to no foot or vehicle traffic in that area from the time of the crime s to the discovery of the phone
. Cf. Commonwea lth v. Palmer , 59 Mass. App. Ct. 415, 419

- 420 (2003) ( sufficient circumstantial evidence where truck with defendant's fingerprints that was used to flee crime scene was found in area "not readily visible from the street, thereby making it unlikely someone would see it, approach it, and touch it during the thr ee hours before it was found" )
. Contrast Commonwealth v. French , 476 Mass. 1023, 102 5 (2017) ( in sufficient circumstantial evidence where windowpane with defendant's fingerprint , removed during break

- in and set in front of store , "could have been readily accessible to any passerby for several hours or more")
. Here, the circumstantial evidence , in combination with the son 's testimony that he saw one of the intruder s handle his pho ne during the crime s , sufficed to reasonably exclude the hypothesis that the defe ndant's fingerprint was impressed at a time other than when the crime s w ere being committed. The defendant also argue s that the Commonwealth did not exclude the possibility that the defendant may have touched the phone before it was found in the woods as a driver or passenger in a car fleeing the crime s . Because we evaluate the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, this argument fails. See Latimore , 378 Mass. at 676

- 677. Officers patrolling8

the area shortly after the crime s did not see any people or cars in the area where the phone was found until the juvenile was located walking alone around 2:55 A . M . Although not the only possible scenario, it is rea sonable and possible to conclude that the defendant was not a getaway driver or car passenge r , and therefore, that the Commonwealth met its burden to reasonably exclude this hypothesis. Schoener , 491 Mass. at 714. Finally, t o the extent that the defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient because there were discrepancies in the father ' s testimony concerning the height of the defendant , this was an issue for the fact finder to resolve , and it does not affect the sufficiency analysis
. See Commonwealth v. Duncan , 71 Mass. App. Ct. 150, 153 n.5 (2008), quoting Jackson

v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (it is " the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts " ). Judgment s affirmed
. By the Court (Meade , Blake & D esmond, JJ. 6 ),

Assistant Clerk

Entered: February 8, 2024.

6 The panelists are listed in order of seniority.