Title: Coggins v. Commonwealth
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-12585
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: October 15, 2019

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SJC-12585 
 
SAYYID COGGINS  vs.  COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 
October 15, 2019. 
 
 
Homicide.  Burning a Dwelling House.  Constitutional Law, Double 
jeopardy.  Practice, Criminal, Double jeopardy, Mistrial. 
 
 
Sayyid Coggins appeals from a judgment of a single justice 
of this court denying his petition for relief under G. L. 
c. 211, § 3.  Coggins has been indicted for murder in the first 
degree and arson in a dwelling, in connection with the death of 
his cousin, Justin Downey.  Coggins's jury trial in the Superior 
Court ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked.  Coggins 
subsequently moved to dismiss the indictments, arguing that his 
retrial was barred by principles of double jeopardy because the 
Commonwealth failed to present sufficient evidence at his first 
trial to warrant a conviction with respect to either charge.  
The judge who heard the motion to dismiss, who had presided at 
the first trial, denied the motion, and this G. L. c. 211, § 3, 
petition followed.  We affirm. 
 
Facts.  Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to 
the Commonwealth, see Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 
676-677 (1979), the jury could have found the following facts.  
Coggins had been assisting the victim with an unlawful marijuana 
growing operation being conducted out of the victim's house in 
New Bedford.  At the time of the murder in April 2014, the 
victim had twenty-eight marijuana plants in his home.  Twenty-
five of the plants belonged to the victim, three to Coggins. 
 
The previous month, the victim had lent Coggins $15,000 to 
purchase heroin, with the understanding that Coggins would 
resell the heroin at a profit and return the money to the victim 
within three weeks.  Coggins was unable to purchase the heroin, 
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and instead gambled away most of the money.  During late March 
and early April, the victim began asking Coggins about the 
money, which annoyed Coggins.  A series of messages on the 
social networking site Facebook reflected multiple requests by 
the victim for information about the money.  These requests came 
at a time when Coggins was about $80,000 in debt and owed child 
support in addition to that.  In contrast, the victim had 
recently received a total of about $115,000 from the proceeds of 
the sale of his great grandparents' home, and he had offered to 
give Coggins up to $30,000 if Coggins thought he could make a 
significant profit on it.  Coggins knew that the victim had a 
safe in his bedroom, in which he kept large sums of money, and 
possessed three vehicles, including a black Dodge Challenger 
that the victim refused to let Coggins drive. 
 
At 8:30 A.M. on April 15, 2014, the victim was found 
murdered in his New Bedford home.  Someone had intentionally set 
the house on fire.  The victim had been badly beaten and burned, 
his wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape, and a rag had 
been stuffed down his throat.  The cause of death was asphyxia 
due to smothering.  The burns occurred after the victim's death. 
 
The back door to the victim's home was found ajar.  The 
fire was started in the victim's second-floor bedroom, near 
where the body was found; an accelerant was used.  The two 
bedrooms in the rear of the second floor of the house, which 
were equipped to grow marijuana, were undamaged by the fire.  In 
one of the rooms, the police found eleven marijuana plants in 
the early stages of growth, in potting soil and black canvas 
sacks.  Seventeen marijuana plants were missing.  Also missing 
were an expensive watch worn by the victim every day, a safe 
containing $13,000, some marijuana seeds the victim kept in one 
of his safes, two cellular telephones, and the keys to the Dodge 
Challenger. 
 
A home security system showed that the back door to the 
victim's house was opened three times between 11 P.M. and 
midnight on the night of the murder.  A neighbor heard barking 
between 11 P.M. and 11:30 P.M., which was not "usual."  The 
victim's two dogs were later found locked in the upstairs 
bathroom of the victim's house. 
 
The door was opened two more times between 1:30 A.M. and 
1:54 A.M.  One of the victim's telephones was used to place 
several calls between 1:58 A.M. and 2:39 A.M.  Two of these were 
to the victim's mother and to the victim's close friend, Kyle 
Pires.  The victim's mother only heard a "snoring sound" on the 
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other end of the line.  Pires could not hear anything, and when 
he called the victim back, the call went straight to voicemail.  
Global positioning system evidence showed that the Dodge 
Challenger was in New Bedford at 2 A.M. and in Providence, Rhode 
Island, at 2:41 A.M.  After making several stops in Rhode 
Island, the Challenger traveled back to Massachusetts and came 
to a stop at 5:09 A.M. at the location in New Bedford where it 
was later found by police.  The back door to the victim's home 
was opened twice more between 5:20 A.M. and 5:40 A.M., before 
finally being opened by a firefighter at 8:29 A.M. 
 
In the months leading up to the murder, Coggins had been 
involved in another marijuana-growing operation at the 
Providence, Rhode Island, home of Brenda House, the mother of 
Coggins's longtime friend, William House.1  The night before the 
murder, Coggins told William that he wanted to move "his half" 
of the marijuana plants out of the victim's house.  Then, on the 
night of the murder, Coggins showed up at William's house in 
Providence alone, driving the victim's Dodge Challenger.  
Coggins was looking for a water pump to feed marijuana plants; 
William told him it was at William's mother's house.  Coggins 
stopped by Brenda's house in the early morning hours of April 15 
while she was asleep; she did not let him in.  He showed up at 
her door again some time later with a small marijuana plant in a 
sack matching those found at the victim's house.  In addition, 
although Coggins later told police that he only had a "dollar on 
[him]" the night of the murder, Coggins spent over two hours 
that night gambling at Twin Rivers Casino in Rhode Island and 
lost $300.  In the days after the murder, after learning that 
the police had searched Brenda's house, Coggins fled to Georgia 
in his girlfriend's car.  After he was apprehended, he lied to 
police about his activities on the night of the murder. 
 
Potting soil consistent with that used for the marijuana 
plants on the second floor of the victim's house was found near 
the back door to the victim's home and in the Dodge Challenger.  
Deoxyribonucleic acid testing and fingerprint analysis were 
performed on various areas of and artifacts from the crime 
scene, but none of the analysis linked Coggins to the crime. 
 
Discussion.  The question for this court is "whether, after 
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 
prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the 
essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt" 
                     
 
1 For the sake of clarity, we hereinafter refer to Brenda 
and William by their first names. 
4 
 
 
 
(emphasis in original).  Latimore, 378 Mass. at 677, quoting 
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979).  If not, his 
retrial would be barred by principles of double jeopardy.  See 
Kater v. Commonwealth, 421 Mass. 17, 19 (1995); Berry v. 
Commonwealth, 393 Mass. 793, 798-799 (1985). 
 
In making this determination, we apply well-established 
legal principles regarding sufficiency of the evidence.  
"Circumstantial evidence may be sufficient to prove guilt beyond 
a reasonable doubt, . . . and the inferences drawn from such 
evidence need not be necessary and inescapable, only reasonable 
and possible" (citations and quotation omitted).  Commonwealth 
v. Braune, 481 Mass. 304, 306-307 (2019).  However, "[t]he 
question of guilt must not be left to conjecture or 
surmise."  Commonwealth v. Maynard, 436 Mass. 558, 562 (2002), 
quoting Commonwealth v. Anderson, 396 Mass. 306, 312 (1985).  
"Mere opportunity to commit the crime or presence at the scene 
of the crime without other evidence is insufficient."  
Commonwealth v. Merola, 405 Mass. 529, 533 (1989).  At the same 
time, it is not necessary for the Commonwealth "to prove that no 
one other than the accused could have performed the act."  
Pinney v. Commonwealth, 479 Mass. 1001, 1004 (2018), 
quoting Merola, supra.  The prosecution "need not exclude every 
reasonable hypothesis of innocence, provided the record as a 
whole supports a conclusion of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" 
(citation omitted).  Merola, supra. 
 
Here, after a review of the trial record, we agree with the 
single justice that the evidence was sufficient for a rational 
jury to convict Coggins of murder in the first degree -- under 
any of the three theories presented by the Commonwealth -- as 
well as arson in a dwelling. 
 
More specifically, we reject Coggins's argument that the 
evidence was insufficient to show that he started the fire and 
caused the victim's death, while acting as a principal as 
opposed to a joint venturer.  Without belaboring the point, the 
circumstantial evidence summarized supra showed that Coggins had 
a motive and the opportunity to commit the crime; that he was 
newly in possession of cash, possessed a marijuana plant in a 
black canvas sack consistent with those found at the victim's 
house, and drove the victim's car, by himself, on the night of 
the murder; and that he displayed consciousness of guilt.2  Taken 
                     
 
2 The single justice detailed the evidence against Coggins 
in a lengthy memorandum and decision, in which he aptly 
distilled the state of the evidence: 
5 
 
 
 
together, the Commonwealth's evidence permitted -- although it 
certainly did not compel -- a jury to find beyond a reasonable 
doubt that it was Coggins who killed the victim and set his 
house on fire. 
 
Evidence presented by the defendant that another individual 
disliked the victim and had threatened to shoot him and burn 
down his house does not alter our conclusion.  This evidence was 
for the jury to weigh, but in our review for evidentiary 
sufficiency we must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of 
the Commonwealth.  See Pinney, 479 Mass. at 1004; Commonwealth 
v. Casale, 381 Mass. 167, 175-176 (1980).  This is not a 
situation in which the evidence was in equipoise as to whether 
Coggins or an alleged third-party culprit committed the crime.  
See Commonwealth v. Morgan, 449 Mass. 343, 350-351 (2007) 
(affirming murder conviction where evidence "point[ed] more 
strongly in the direction of the defendant's culpability" rather 
than cohort's).  Contrast Commonwealth v. Salemme, 395 Mass. 
594, 601 (1985) (holding that evidence was insufficient to 
sustain murder conviction where defendant and another individual 
had "equal opportunity" to commit murder). 
 
Finally, we reject Coggins's argument that there was 
insufficient evidence to support a conclusion that he committed 
armed robbery as the predicate offense for felony-murder.  The 
evidence of the missing watch, safe, cash, cellular telephones, 
and marijuana plants, in conjunction with evidence that Coggins 
transported one of the marijuana plants from the victim's house 
in the victim's car and gambled away newly acquired cash on the 
night of the murder, would warrant a rational jury in concluding 
that Coggins committed armed robbery and murder "as part of one 
continuous transaction" (citation omitted).  Commonwealth v. 
Morin, 478 Mass. 415, 422 (2017). 
 
                     
 
"Here, the Commonwealth presented evidence indicating that 
the petitioner was in need of money, that he disliked the 
victim, and that he knew that the victim had a large amount 
of cash.  The Commonwealth also presented evidence 
indicating that the petitioner went to the victim's home on 
the night of the killing, that he drove the victim's 
vehicle after the victim was incapacitated or killed, and 
that after the murder he had in his possession a marijuana 
plant similar to the ones at the victim's home and cash 
that he did not have prior to the murder." 
6 
 
 
 
Conclusion.  Because the evidence was sufficient to support 
convictions of murder in the first degree and arson in a 
dwelling, principles of double jeopardy do not bar Coggins's 
retrial.  The single justice neither erred nor abused his 
discretion in denying relief. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
Jennifer H. O'Brien for the petitioner. 
 
Tara L. Johnston, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth.