Title: Commonwealth v. Lopez
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-12525
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: March 3, 2020

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SJC-12525 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  JEAN CARLOS LOPEZ. 
 
 
 
Bristol.     November 8, 2019. - March 3, 2020. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, & Budd, JJ. 
 
 
Homicide.  Joint Enterprise.  Evidence, Joint venturer.  
Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Motion for a required 
finding. 
 
 
 
 
Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on October 27, 2010. 
 
 
The case was tried before Robert J. Kane, J. 
 
 
 
Robert F. Shaw, Jr., for the defendant. 
 
Stephen C. Nadeau, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, for 
the Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
BUDD, J.  Late at night on June 25, 2010, Tigan 
Hollingsworth was killed when he was chased into the back yard 
of a home in Taunton and stabbed thirteen times.  The defendant, 
Jean Carlos Lopez, was convicted as a joint venturer of murder 
in the first degree on the theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty 
in connection with the death.  On appeal, the defendant argues, 
2 
 
 
among other things, that the trial judge erred in denying the 
defendant's motion for a required finding of not guilty because 
the evidence presented to the jury was insufficient to establish 
the defendant's knowing participation in the killing with the 
required intent beyond a reasonable doubt.  We agree, and we 
therefore reverse the judgment, set aside the defendant's 
conviction, and remand the case to the Superior Court for entry 
of a judgment of not guilty. 
 
Background.  We present the facts in the light most 
favorable to the Commonwealth, leaving some details for our 
discussion of the sufficiency of the evidence. 
 
At approximately 11:30 P.M. on the night of the killing, a 
group of individuals, including Etnid Lopez (the defendant's 
brother), Kayla Lawrence (Etnid's1 girlfriend), Jared Brown-
Garnham (Garnham), and Michelle Torrey, congregated at a 
convenience store in Taunton.  Etnid wore a white T-shirt, and 
Garnham wore dark clothes with a blue bandana.  The victim, 
wearing a black jacket with gold lettering on the back, also was 
there.  Lawrence knew the victim through mutual acquaintances 
and had witnessed the victim, along with a group of other 
people, "jump" the defendant approximately two years earlier.  
While Etnid went into the convenience store, Lawrence and the 
                     
 
1 We refer to Etnid Lopez by his first name because he 
shares a last name with the defendant. 
3 
 
 
victim had a heated exchange.  Etnid then came out of the store 
and, with a knife in his hand and swearing, began chasing the 
victim around the parking lot.2 
 
In the meantime, the defendant drove into the parking lot 
accompanied by his uncle, Erving Cruz.  The defendant was 
wearing a light blue sweatshirt; Cruz was wearing a black tank 
top and black pants.  The two men got out of the vehicle, and 
Cruz shouted to Etnid, "Is that him?  Is that him?  Get him.  
Get him."  Cruz and the defendant, together with Garnham, joined 
the chase.3  The victim then ran out of the parking lot and down 
the street. 
Witnesses Matthew D'Alessandro and Brittany Machado 
observed events unfold from their vehicle as they stopped at a 
traffic light across the street from the convenience store and 
then continued toward their nearby home.  Both saw the victim 
being chased down the street by two men:  one in a white T-shirt 
(whom it is reasonable to infer was Etnid), and a second man who 
                     
 
2 Only one witness for the Commonwealth testified to having 
seen Etnid with a knife while he chased the victim around the 
parking lot.  That witness did not see the defendant in the 
parking lot when Etnid wielded the knife. 
 
3 Surveillance footage from the convenience store parking 
lot captured the defendant and Cruz getting out of the 
defendant's vehicle and running quickly out of the camera's 
frame.  Sixty-eight seconds later, the video shows Cruz return 
to the vehicle, followed fourteen seconds later by the 
defendant, and then they drive away. 
4 
 
 
had just gotten out of a vehicle in the parking lot wearing 
black pants and a black tank top (whom it is reasonable to infer 
was Cruz).  As Machado made a left turn into her driveway, the 
victim, who was running toward Machado's vehicle, quickly 
doubled back to avoid running into her vehicle, ducked away from 
the two men chasing him, and ran down a nearby driveway.4  The 
two men followed. 
Machado drove her vehicle to the end of her driveway and 
parked.  As they parked, D'Alessandro and Machado heard sounds 
consistent with a chain-link fence that was located to their 
left being climbed.  From the vehicle, D'Alessandro observed the 
victim jump to the ground from the fence into the back yard next 
door, followed closely by the two men who were chasing him.  
D'Alessandro heard one of the pursuers say, "Get him, get him.  
Don't let him go."  D'Alessandro then saw the man in the white 
T-shirt and the man in the black tank top attack the man in the 
black jacket, hitting him repeatedly.  The victim fell to the 
ground, and the two attackers climbed back over the fence and 
fled.5 
                     
 
4 Machado was unable to specify which driveway they ran 
down.  D'Alessandro testified that it was the driveway two 
houses to the left of their house. 
 
 
5 In separate trials Etnid Lopez was found guilty of murder 
in the first degree and Erving Cruz was found guilty of murder 
in the second degree for the stabbing of the victim. 
5 
 
 
Janet Dinneen, who lived in the house to the right of 
D'Alessandro and Machado's home (i.e., two houses to the right 
of where the stabbing occurred), made contemporaneous 
observations from her kitchen window.  She saw the attack take 
place in the back yard next to D'Alessandro and Machado's house, 
near the fence bordering D'Alessandro and Machado's yard.  She 
observed three men hovering over a fourth with their "hands 
flailing . . . they kept pummeling him."  She testified that one 
attacker wore white and the two others wore dark clothing.  The 
victim repeatedly attempted to get up from the ground but was 
unable to do so.  She saw the three assailants flee with a woman 
who called from the driveway for the men to get into a vehicle. 
As soon as the men fled, D'Alessandro got out of his 
vehicle, climbed the fence into his neighbor's back yard where 
the victim lay, called police, and yelled for his mother to 
bring towels from their home.  He comforted the victim until the 
police arrived, using the towels to staunch the bleeding from 
the victim's head.  Machado joined D'Alessandro in the back yard 
and put her work shirt under the victim's head to cushion it.  
When she did so, she noticed that the victim was bleeding from 
his head and back.  Once Machado heard the sound of police 
cruisers down the street, she ran down the driveway, to the left 
toward the convenience store, and led police officers to the 
victim in the back yard. 
6 
 
 
Lawrence testified for the Commonwealth under a grant of 
immunity.6  She told the jury that when the victim ran out of the 
convenience store parking lot, down a side street, and 
eventually into a driveway, he was followed by Etnid, Cruz, 
Garnham, and the defendant.  She followed behind them.  Lawrence 
testified that, as she stood near the top of the driveway, she 
saw "fighting" involving the victim, Etnid, Cruz, Garnham, and 
the defendant taking place in the driveway.  At some point, she 
saw the defendant kick the victim.  Torrey then drove up and 
called for everyone to get in her car.  Lawrence testified that 
when she turned to leave, the victim was still alive and 
groaning in pain on the ground.  Etnid, Garnham, and Lawrence 
got into Torrey's vehicle and they drove away.  On direct and 
cross-examination, Lawrence testified that she never went into 
the back yard.  On cross-examination she stated that she could 
not see into the back yard and did not see a chain-link fence. 
The Commonwealth advanced the theory that the victim was 
attacked and stabbed in that back yard by the defendant, Etnid, 
and Cruz, after which Etnid left by the driveway (joining 
Lawrence and Garnham in the vehicle driven by Torrey) while the 
defendant and Cruz jumped over the back yard fence. 
                     
6 Lawrence was charged with misleading the police based on 
allegedly false information she provided to them, and with 
accessory after the fact for allegedly disposing of the murder 
weapon. 
7 
 
 
The defendant moved for a required finding of not guilty at 
the close of the Commonwealth's case and at the close of all 
evidence.  Both motions were denied.  The jury thereafter 
convicted the defendant of murder in the first degree as a joint 
venturer under a theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty. 
 
Discussion.  The defendant raises three issues on appeal 
and requests relief pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  However, 
we address only defendant's claim that there was insufficient 
evidence to support his conviction of murder in the first degree 
as a joint venturer, and we reverse his conviction on that 
basis.7 
For a defendant to be convicted of murder in the first 
degree as a joint venturer, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a 
reasonable doubt that the defendant "knowingly participated in 
the commission of the crime charged, alone or with others, with 
the intent required for the offense." Commonwealth v. Rakes, 478 
Mass. 22, 32 (2017). 
When reviewing a motion for a required finding of not 
guilty for insufficiency of the evidence, we view the evidence 
in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth to determine 
whether that evidence is sufficient to satisfy a rational trier 
                     
 
7 The defendant's additional claims are that statements made 
by the defendant's coventurers were erroneously admitted in 
evidence and that the judge's instructions to the jury were 
prejudicial. 
8 
 
 
of fact that each element of the crime charged could be found 
beyond a reasonable doubt.  Commonwealth v. Deane, 458 Mass. 43, 
50 (2010), quoting Commonwealth v. Garuti, 454 Mass. 48, 54 
(2009).  Where, as here, the evidence in the case centers on 
conflicting testimony, issues of credibility are resolved in 
favor of the Commonwealth.  Commonwealth v. Platt, 440 Mass. 
396, 401 (2003), citing Commonwealth v. James, 424 Mass. 770, 
785 (1997).  "If the evidence lends itself to several 
conflicting interpretations, it is the province of the jury to 
resolve the discrepancy and 'determine where the truth lies.'"  
Platt, supra, quoting Commonwealth v. Lydon, 413 Mass. 309, 312 
(1992). 
The defendant argues that the judge erred in denying his 
motions for a required finding of not guilty because the 
evidence did not demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that he 
participated in, or was even present during, the stabbing.  The 
Commonwealth contends that the evidence, viewed in the light 
most favorable to it, establishes the defendant's presence at 
the scene of the murder and his continued participation in the 
attack, and that, given the brutality of the attack, the jury 
were entitled to infer that the participants acted with extreme 
atrocity and cruelty. 
To determine whether the Commonwealth proved the 
defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we review 
9 
 
 
Lawrence's testimony with care, as it is the only evidence that 
places the defendant at (or near) the scene of the murder.  
Lawrence testified that she arrived at the convenience store 
with Torrey, Etnid, and Garnham.  She noticed the victim and 
told Etnid that the victim was present; Etnid then went into the 
convenience store.  After Lawrence and the victim exchanged 
words, Etnid came out of the store and began chasing the victim 
around the parking lot.  As he did so, the defendant drove up 
with Cruz.  Both men got out of the vehicle and joined the 
chase. 
Lawrence testified that the victim, Etnid, Cruz, Garnham, 
and the defendant all left the convenience store parking lot, 
ran down a side street, and then ran into a nearby driveway.8  
Lawrence followed the group and when she reached the driveway, 
she walked "a little bit in" so that she stood between two 
houses on either side of the driveway.  Lawrence also testified 
that she did not go into the back yard, could not see into the 
back yard, and did not observe any obvious features of the back 
yard, including the chain-link fence.  She testified that she 
saw the defendant, Etnid, Cruz, and Garnham also in the driveway 
fighting the victim and that the defendant participated in the 
                     
 
8 The victim was discovered in the back yard of a home 
bordered by a driveway on either side.  Lawrence was unable to 
identify which driveway the men ran down. 
10 
 
 
fight by kicking the victim.  The victim eventually fell to the 
ground.  Torrey arrived and called for the group to get into her 
vehicle.  Lawrence turned and ran to Torrey's vehicle, with 
Etnid next to her and Garnham following them; Torrey then drove 
from the area. 
According to Lawrence, the attack took place in a driveway 
and the victim was prone in that driveway when she left with 
Etnid and Garnham.  Yet the victim was found and tended to by 
multiple witnesses on the other side of a chain-link fence in a 
back yard.  Given this discrepancy, in order to bridge the 
evidentiary gap left by Lawrence's account, the jury would have 
to reject the Commonwealth's own theory, either of who 
participated in the killing of the victim (the defendant, Etnid 
and Cruz) or of where the stabbing occurred, and conclude either 
that (1) two attacks occurred in succession (only one of which 
Lawrence observed and Etnid participated in); or that (2) after 
the victim was stabbed in the driveway, he somehow made it to 
the back yard where he was found.  We conclude that there is 
insufficient evidence to prove the defendant guilty of murder 
beyond a reasonable doubt under either scenario. 
"[I]t is not enough for the appellate court to find that 
there was some record evidence, however slight, to support each 
essential element of the offense; it must find that there was 
enough evidence that could have satisfied a rational trier of 
11 
 
 
fact of each such element beyond a reasonable doubt."  
Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 677-678 (1979).  
Further, although "[t]he jury are permitted to draw rational 
inferences from the evidence, . . . no essential element of the 
crime may rest in surmise, conjecture, or guesswork."  
Commonwealth v. Kelley, 359 Mass. 77, 88 (1971), and cases 
cited.  That is, a conviction may not "rest upon the piling of 
inference upon inference or conjecture and speculation."  
Commonwealth v. Mandile, 403 Mass. 93, 94 (1988), citing 
Commonwealth v. Ferguson, 384 Mass. 13, 18 (1981).  With these 
principles in mind, we examine each scenario in turn. 
With regard to the first scenario, Lawrence testified that 
she witnessed the first attack in the driveway, where she saw 
"everyone," including the defendant, beating the victim.  The 
second attack would have had to occur in the back yard, where 
D'Alessandro and Dinneen saw the victim being stabbed.  In this 
scenario, after the first attack when Lawrence, Etnid, and 
Garnham ran to Torrey's vehicle, Cruz and the defendant remained 
behind and chased the victim into the back yard where they 
overtook him and stabbed him to death.  The attackers then 
quickly returned to the convenience store to retrieve the 
defendant's car. 
To accept this version of events, the jury would have had 
to infer that after Etnid and Garnham left the driveway area, 
12 
 
 
the victim was able to rise from his position on the ground 
where he had been beaten and kicked, somehow briefly elude the 
defendant and Cruz who remained behind, and scale the chain-link 
fence to get to the back yard before he was stabbed.  The jury 
also would have had to disregard integral portions of the 
testimony of two eyewitnesses to the attack in the back yard.  
D'Alessandro repeatedly testified that one of the two attackers 
he saw wore a white T-shirt and the other wore a black tank top.9  
Dinneen testified that she saw three attackers, one in white, 
and two others in dark clothing.  Although D'Alessandro observed 
two attackers and Dinneen said she saw three, neither witness 
saw anyone in a light blue sweatshirt.  "While it is true that 
the jury may believe part of a witness's testimony and reject 
part or believe all or reject all, the jury's right to selective 
credibility does not permit [them] to distort or mutilate any 
integral portion of the testimony to permit them to believe an 
unfounded hypothesis."  Commonwealth v. Perez, 390 Mass. 308, 
314 (1983), S.C., 442 Mass. 1019 (2004). 
                     
 
9 D'Alessandro also testified that the two men (Etnid and 
Cruz) seen on the surveillance footage chasing the victim around 
the convenience store parking lot were the same men who chased 
the victim down the street, almost hit Machado's vehicle as they 
were running, chased the victim down a driveway, and then 
attacked the victim in the back yard of the home next to his.  
Although Machado did not witness the attack, she too saw Etnid 
and Cruz chasing the victim in the street. 
13 
 
 
In addition, the jury would have had to engage in 
impermissible conjecture regarding the murder weapon.  The only 
knife admitted in evidence was discovered by police in a storm 
drain after Garnham led them to it.10  However, assuming that 
there were two attacks, if the knife presented to the jury was 
the murder weapon, the jury would have had to guess at how 
either Garnham or Lawrence, who both left the area with Etnid, 
came to possess the knife.  Alternatively, the jury would have 
had to assume that a different knife was used in the second 
attack, despite there being no evidence that either Cruz or the 
defendant possessed a knife that night. 
 
In sum, the inferences necessary to place the defendant in 
the back yard at the time of the stabbing in the two-attack 
scenario require impermissible surmise and conjecture.  "If a 
rational jury 'necessarily would have had to employ conjecture' 
in choosing among the possible inferences from the evidence 
presented, the evidence is insufficient to sustain the 
Commonwealth's burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable 
doubt."  Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 456 Mass. 578, 582 (2010), 
quoting Commonwealth v. Croft, 345 Mass. 143, 145 (1962). 
                     
10 Garnham told police that after they fled the scene, 
Lawrence got out of Torrey's vehicle to dispose of the knife.  
In contrast, Lawrence testified that, upon fleeing the scene, 
Garnham had the knife.  At one point, she and Garnham got out of 
Torrey's vehicle and Garnham briefly disappeared by himself in 
the area where the weapon was later discovered. 
14 
 
 
The only other scenario, if we assume that Lawrence 
testified truthfully, is that there was only one attack which 
occurred in the driveway, during which the victim was stabbed.  
This scenario, like the first, required the jury to make 
impermissible inferential leaps to guess at how the mortally 
wounded victim got from the driveway to the back yard, where he 
was found immediately after the attackers fled.  See 
Commonwealth v. Mazza, 399 Mass. 395, 399 (1987) (no rational 
trier of fact could find defendant guilty where case built on 
impermissible conjecture); Commonwealth v. Salemme, 395 Mass. 
594, 599-600 (1985) ("[I]f, upon all the evidence, the question 
of the guilt of the defendant is left to conjecture or surmise 
and has no solid foundation in established facts, a verdict of 
guilty cannot stand" [citation omitted]). 
First, based on the testimony of the first people to reach 
the victim in the back yard (D'Alessandro, Machado, and Dinneen) 
the victim attempted to move, but could not.  A medical examiner 
testified that the victim had been stabbed once in the head and 
six times in the chest cavity with four stab wounds entering the 
lungs, and that six of the twelve stab wounds were "immediately 
life-threatening."  The first police officer on the scene 
testified that the victim, through labored breathing, told the 
officer that he could not breathe.  Given the victim's severe 
injuries and eyewitness testimony regarding his lack of 
15 
 
 
mobility, it strains credulity to believe that he would have 
been able to make his way down a driveway, past a vehicle,11 and 
climb over a fence in order to be in the back yard by the time 
the witnesses found him there.  See Commonwealth v. Giang, 402 
Mass. 604, 609 (1988) ("Whether an inference is warranted or is 
impermissibly remote must be determined, not by hard and fast 
rules of law, but by experience and common sense" [citation 
omitted]). 
In addition, the physical evidence was not consistent with 
this theory.  The only blood found at the scene was in the back 
yard.  D'Alessandro, who reached the victim just after the 
attackers fled, saw a pool of blood under the victim's head.  
Machado likewise testified that once she joined D'Alessandro, 
she also noticed a large amount of blood around the victim.  As 
soon as she touched the back of his head, her hand was covered 
in blood.  When Dinneen approached the victim minutes later, she 
too saw that he was "bloody."  A police officer responding to 
the scene found the victim with a "large pool of blood under his 
back," and blood on the ground on either side of his head.  
Police also discovered a pool of blood on the ground where the 
                     
 
11 As mentioned supra, Lawrence was not sure which driveway 
she stood in; however, each of the two possible driveways had 
cars or a truck parked in them on the night of the stabbing. 
16 
 
 
victim's clothing was found.12  The physical evidence therefore 
suggests that the victim bled quickly and heavily, including 
from his head.  However, there was no testimony that blood was 
found in the driveway.13,14 
Generally it is for a jury to decide whether to credit the 
testimony of a witness.  Commonwealth v. Barbosa, 477 Mass. 658, 
666 (2017), quoting Commonwealth v. Miranda, 458 Mass. 100, 113 
(2010), cert. denied, 565 U.S. 1013 (2011), S.C., 474 Mass. 1008 
(2016).  However, in these unique circumstances, it is 
impossible to reconcile Lawrence's testimony not only with the 
                     
 
12 No blood trail was found leading from either driveway 
into the back yard.  Although a lone blood stain was found on 
top of the open gate between the back yard and the driveway, 
D'Alessandro testified that Machado likely opened the gate when 
she ran to summon the police after her hands were covered in the 
victim's blood. 
 
 
13 For the same reasons, an inference that the defendant and 
Cruz carried the victim to the chain-link fence and placed him 
in the back yard before the witnesses arrived similarly would 
require an impermissible piling of inference upon inference. 
 
 
14 Although the jury are free to disbelieve the testimony of 
any trial witness, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Zanetti, 454 Mass. 
449, 457 (2009), in order to accept this version of events, the 
jury would have had to reject the testimony of two witnesses, 
D'Alessandro and Dinneen, upon whom the Commonwealth relied, in 
addition to rejecting the Commonwealth's own theory of how the 
murder happened.  Both D'Alessandro and Dinneen testified that 
they saw the victim being attacked in the back yard.  
D'Alessandro further testified that, as soon as the attackers 
fled the back yard, he got out of his vehicle, jumped over the 
back yard fence between his driveway and the victim, and went to 
the victim's side to help him. 
17 
 
 
testimony of each of the other witnesses, but also with the 
location of the body and the uncontroverted testimony that no 
witness observed anyone wearing a light blue sweatshirt in the 
back yard that night. 
 
We also point out that neither of the alternative scenarios 
aligns with the Commonwealth's theory at trial, which is that 
one attack occurred in the back yard, perpetrated by the 
defendant, Etnid, and Cruz.  The prosecutor claimed during her 
closing argument that Dinneen observed the defendant, Cruz, and 
Etnid attack the victim in the back yard, and that after Etnid 
left in Torrey's vehicle, D'Alessandro observed the defendant 
and Cruz continue the attack and then flee.15  See Commonwealth 
                     
 
15 Although not dispositive given our holding regarding the 
sufficiency of the evidence, we note that in making this 
argument, the Commonwealth misstated Lawrence's testimony in a 
fairly significant way.  During closing argument, the prosecutor 
inaccurately told the jury that Lawrence testified that she saw 
the defendant, Etnid, Garnham, and Cruz in the back yard 
punching and kicking the victim.  However, Lawrence repeatedly 
testified that the attack occurred in the driveway and denied 
being able to see into the back yard.  Lawrence even corrected 
the prosecutor when she suggested that Lawrence saw an attack in 
the back yard.  Based on Lawrence's description of where she 
stood, her view of the back yard indeed would have been 
obstructed either by a house or by a large pickup truck parked 
in the driveway. 
 
 
Moreover, the prosecutor also suggested in closing that 
D'Alessandro saw the defendant in the back yard, contradicting 
D'Alessandro's testimony that the men chasing the victim in the 
surveillance footage, identified as Etnid and Cruz, were the 
same men he saw attacking the defendant.  D'Alessandro also 
repeatedly testified that the attackers wore clothing consistent 
18 
 
 
v. O'Laughlin, 446 Mass. 188, 203 (2006), quoting Kater v. 
Commonwealth, 421 Mass. 17, 20 (1995) (deterioration of 
Commonwealth's case occurs where evidence of necessary elements 
"is later shown to be incredible or conclusively incorrect"). 
 
Although evidence was presented that the defendant had a 
motive to retaliate against the victim and that the defendant 
was one of a group of people who chased the victim, there was 
insufficient evidence to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt 
that the defendant stabbed the victim or was present at the time 
of the stabbing.  See Commonwealth v. Gonzalez, 475 Mass. 396, 
414 (2016); Commonwealth v. Swafford, 441 Mass. 329, 339 (2004). 
Because the Commonwealth's evidence was insufficient to 
demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant's presence 
when the victim was stabbed, the conviction cannot stand.  
Commonwealth v. Amado, 387 Mass. 179, 189 (1982).  Moreover, 
retrial of the defendant is barred by the principles of double 
jeopardy.  Id. at 190, quoting Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 
1, 11 (1978) ("The Double Jeopardy Clause forbids a second trial 
for the purpose of affording the prosecution another opportunity 
to supply evidence which it failed to muster in the first 
proceeding"). 
                     
with the clothing worn by Etnid and Cruz and inconsistent with 
the light blue sweatshirt the defendant was wearing that night.  
See Commonwealth v. Perez, 390 Mass. 308, 314 (1983), S.C., 442 
Mass. 1019 (2004). 
19 
 
 
 
Conclusion.  The defendant's conviction is reversed, the 
verdict is set aside, and the case is remanded to the Superior 
Court for entry of a judgment of not guilty. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.