Title: Pinney v. Commonwealth
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-12197
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: February 15, 2018

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SJC-12197 
 
FREDERICK PINNEY  vs.  COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 
February 15, 2018. 
 
 
Homicide.  Constitutional Law, Double jeopardy.  Practice, 
Criminal, Mistrial, Double jeopardy. 
 
 
 
Frederick Pinney is charged with murder in the first 
degree.  After his first trial ended in a mistrial, he moved to 
dismiss the indictment on the basis that the evidence presented 
was legally insufficient to warrant a conviction, and therefore 
retrying him would violate the guarantee against double 
jeopardy.  The trial judge denied the motion, and Pinney then 
filed a petition pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, in the county 
court, seeking review of that decision.  A single justice denied 
the petition, and Pinney appeals.  We affirm. 
 
 
Background.  Pinney was indicted in 2014 for the murder of 
Tayclair Moore.  His trial commenced in January, 2016, and 
lasted several days.  At the close of the Commonwealth's case, 
Pinney moved for a required finding of not guilty, which the 
trial judge denied.  He renewed the motion orally later that day 
at the close of all the evidence; the judge took no action on 
the motion at that time.  Pinney renewed the motion again, in 
writing, several days later while the jury were deliberating; 
again the judge took no immediate action. 
 
 
After deliberating for several days, the jury reported to 
the judge that they were deadlocked, leading the judge to give 
them, the following day, an instruction pursuant to Commonwealth 
v. Rodriquez, 364 Mass. 87, 101–102 (1973) (Appendix A), and 
Commonwealth v. Tuey, 8 Cush. 1, 2–3 (1851).  Later that day, 
the foreperson informed the judge that one of the deliberating 
jurors had discussed the deliberations with the alternate 
2 
 
jurors.  The judge conducted an individual voir dire of the 
jurors, determined that the deliberating and alternate jurors 
had improperly communicated, and concluded that the jurors had 
engaged in misconduct.  On this basis, Pinney filed a motion for 
a mistrial that the judge allowed.  The judge later denied 
Pinney's renewed motion for a required finding of not guilty.  
Pinney subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, 
claiming that the evidence was insufficient to warrant a guilty 
verdict and that double jeopardy principles thus barred any 
retrial.  The trial judge denied that motion as well. 
 
 
Discussion.  In certain circumstances, allowing a retrial 
of a defendant whose first trial has ended in a mistrial would 
infringe on the defendant's double jeopardy right not to be 
tried twice for the same offense.  One such circumstance is 
where the evidence at the first trial was legally insufficient 
to warrant a conviction.  See Choy v. Commonwealth, 456 Mass. 
146, 149-150, cert. denied, 562 U.S. 986 (2010); Neverson v. 
Commonwealth, 406 Mass. 174, 175-176 (1989).  See also 
Commonwealth v. Scott, 472 Mass. 815, 818 & n.5 (2015).  "After 
a mistrial, the Commonwealth may retry a defendant [only] if it 
has presented evidence at the first 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."  Brangan v. 
Commonwealth, 478 Mass. 361, 363 (2017), citing Commonwealth v. 
Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-677 (1979).  The issue here, then, 
is whether the evidence presented to the jury was legally 
sufficient to support a guilty verdict on the charge of murder.  
We conclude that it was. 
 
 
Based on the extensive evidence presented to the jury, 
considered in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the 
jury could have found the following.  The day before the 
victim's death, Pinney, his roommate Christopher Podgurski, and 
the victim, Podgurski's girlfriend, were together in Holyoke, 
where all three of them consumed illegal drugs.  Pinney and the 
victim eventually returned to the home that he and Podgurski 
shared in Springfield.  Podgurski, meanwhile, stayed in Holyoke 
-- he went to a bar and to a friend's house and then went to his 
mother's house to stay the night.  At 4:26 A.M. he received a 
text message from Pinney saying that the victim was "fucked up."  
He also received an unrelated telephone call from a friend at 
around the same time, on his mother's home telephone.  The 
friend testified that Podgurski was sleepy and sounded 
"hammered" when they spoke on the telephone. 
 
3 
 
 
Podgurski woke up at his mother's house at approximately 
10:15 A.M.  He called the victim, but she did not answer her 
telephone.  He then drove to his home in Springfield to look for 
her and, upon arriving there, found her cellular telephone and 
glasses in the bedroom that they shared.  He could not, however, 
find the victim.  Podgurski knocked on Pinney's bedroom door and 
asked about the victim.  Pinney responded (without opening the 
door) that she had gotten angry and "left."  He eventually 
opened the door just enough to exit the room and then closed and 
locked the door behind him.  Podgurski told Pinney that he 
wanted to see inside the room; Pinney agreed, went downstairs to 
get a key to the bedroom door, and returned with the key and a 
butcher knife.  After Pinney unlocked the door, Podgurski 
glimpsed the victim's unclothed legs on the floor.  Because 
Pinney was armed with a butcher knife, Podgurski pretended not 
to see the victim.  He then left the house, parked his motor 
vehicle in the driveway blocking Pinney's truck, and telephoned 
911. 
 
 
When the police arrived, they found Podgurski outside.  
They entered the home and observed blood on the kitchen floor 
and knives on the countertop.  Pinney was in the kitchen at the 
time.1  The police forced open the locked door to Pinney's 
bedroom and found the victim on the floor, unclothed and 
unresponsive.  She had ligature marks on her neck and a bloody 
nose.  A paramedic determined that she had no pulse and was not 
breathing, and that her pupils were fixed.  She was cool to the 
touch, and her jaw and upper and lower extremity joints were 
stiff, indicating rigor mortis. 
 
 
Items collected at the scene were tested for 
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and the results of the tests were 
presented at trial.  Among other things, swabs of red-brown 
stains taken from the victim's chest indicated the presence of 
Pinney's blood.  Other DNA belonging to Pinney and the victim 
was recovered from the house, including from the kitchen, 
stairs, and bathroom.  A DNA profile from an electrical cord 
taken from Pinney's bedroom matched Podgurski, and Podgurski 
                                                 
 
1 The Commonwealth states that, in a videotaped interview at 
the police station later that day, Pinney told the police that 
at some point during the prior evening, he decided to kill 
himself and cut his arms and neck; that he then passed out; and 
that he had no memory of what happened afterward.  Portions of 
the interview were played for the jury, and a recording of the 
interview was entered in evidence.  The interview was not 
transcribed. 
4 
 
could not be excluded from a partial DNA profile from the 
victim's fingernail scrapings.  The forensic pathologist who 
conducted the autopsy testified that the victim died as a result 
of asphyxia by ligature strangulation by another.  She further 
testified that the victim's death was not caused by the presence 
of narcotics in her body or by manual strangulation.  
Additionally, the certificate of death indicated that the time 
of death was unknown. 
 
 
Pinney and the Commonwealth agree that the primary 
contested issue at trial was the identity of the perpetrator.  
Pinney argues that the evidence suggests that Podgurski killed 
the victim.  He points to evidence that Podgurski and the victim 
had been together for ten years, during which time the victim 
had obtained numerous abuse prevention orders against Podgurski.  
Additionally, there was evidence that Podgurski had been 
convicted of assault and battery on the victim, admitted that he 
had beaten and strangled her on a prior occasion, and had gone 
to a batterer's class.  The victim herself suffered from a 
variety of drug addictions and had sought treatment. 
 
 
Pinney also points to toxicology evidence indicating that 
the victim had several different illegal substances in her 
system when she died, including marijuana.  He suggests that 
there was some evidence that she had ingested the marijuana 
shortly before she died.  Because there was no evidence 
presented that any marijuana or marijuana "detritus" was found 
in the home after it was searched following the discovery of the 
victim's body, he argues that someone other than him must have 
provided the marijuana.  He then suggests that it was Podgurski, 
highlighting the fact that Podgurski had, by his own admission, 
smoked marijuana when he returned home that day after he could 
not initially locate the victim and before he saw her body on 
Pinney's bedroom floor.  In Pinney's view, because the precise 
time of death was unknown, it was possible that Podgurski not 
only provided the victim with marijuana that morning, but was 
also the one who killed her. 
 
 
As stated, we are concerned here only with the legal 
sufficiency of the evidence to warrant a conviction of murder, 
and because the central contested issue is the identity of the 
victim's assailant, we are especially concerned with the 
sufficiency of the evidence to warrant a finding that Pinney was 
the one who murdered her.  The principles we apply are well-
settled: 
 
5 
 
 
"Under the familiar Latimore standard, the evidence is 
sufficient to reach the jury and a motion for a required 
finding of not guilty is properly denied if the evidence, 
viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth and 
drawing all inferences in favor of the Commonwealth, would 
permit a rational jury to find each essential element of 
the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.  [Latimore, 378 Mass.  
at 676-677].  In considering whether the jury could find 
the existence of each element of the crime charged, we do 
not weigh the supporting evidence against the conflicting 
evidence.  Commonwealth v. Lao, 443 Mass. 770, 779 (2005).  
While the inferences drawn must be reasonable, they 'need 
not be necessary or inescapable.'  Commonwealth v. 
Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 140-141 (2001), quoting 
Commonwealth v. Lodge, 431 Mass. 461, 465 (2000).  That 
evidence is conflicting does not demand a required finding 
of not guilty.  See Koonce v. Commonwealth, 412 Mass. 71, 
75 (1992).  The jury are free to believe or disbelieve any 
or all of the evidence they hear.  Id.  However, evidence 
is not sufficient if it requires piling 'inference upon 
inference,' or requires 'conjecture and speculation.'  
Corson v. Commonwealth, [428 Mass. 193, 197 (1998)]." 
 
Commonwealth v. Merry, 453 Mass. 653, 660-661 (2009). 
 
 
Although Pinney raises reasonable points about, among other 
things, Podgurski's apparently troubled relationship with the 
victim, the marijuana in the victim's system at the time of her 
death, and the fact that the exact time of death is unknown, 
these concern the weight of the evidence, not its legal 
sufficiency.  He is free to argue these points to the jury, and 
to try to persuade them that Podgurski was the one who killed 
the victim.  The Commonwealth is not required "to prove that no 
one other than the accused could have performed the act."  
Commonwealth v. Merola, 405 Mass. 529, 533 (1989), quoting 
Commonwealth v. Casale, 381 Mass. 167, 175 (1980).  That someone 
other than the defendant might have had the opportunity to 
commit the crime goes to the weight of the evidence, and that is 
a matter for a jury.  See Casale, 381 Mass. at 175-176.  For 
present purposes, we are satisfied that the evidence viewed most 
favorably to the Commonwealth, together with the permissible 
inferences, was more than sufficient to permit the jury to 
conclude that Pinney killed the victim. 
 
 
The pathologist's stated cause of death was asphyxia by 
ligature strangulation by another.  Based on the state of the 
victim's body at the time the paramedic first examined her, the 
6 
 
paramedic's testimony regarding rigor mortis, and evidence that 
Podgurski had spent the previous night and the first part of 
that morning in Holyoke, a jury could rationally conclude that 
the victim was killed before Podgurski arrived home, i.e., at a 
time when only Pinney was with her.  A jury also could 
rationally conclude, on the basis of the suspicious 
circumstances and Pinney's highly suspicious behavior in the 
aftermath of the killing -- the location of the victim's 
lifeless, unclothed body on the floor of his locked bedroom; his 
falsely telling Podgurski, when asked the victim's whereabouts, 
that she had gotten angry and left; his locking the bedroom door 
as soon as he left the room, and then arming himself with a 
butcher knife before returning to unlock the door -- that it was 
Pinney who killed her. 
 
 
Because the evidence was legally sufficient to support a 
murder verdict against Pinney, retrying him will not violate his 
protection against double jeopardy.  The single justice 
therefore did not err in denying relief pursuant to G. L. 
c. 211, § 3. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
John M. Thompson (Linda J. Thompson also present) for the 
petitioner. 
 
Bethany C. Lynch, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth.