Court Opinion

ID: 9530109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:57:22.866871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:59.958370
License: Public Domain

Hennessey, C.J.
(dissenting in part). I agree with the main opinion in all aspects except the conclusion that the evidence did not warrant an inference that the defendant acted with deliberately premeditated malice. Although the evidence was sparse as to this issue, I believe it was suffi*156cient for the jury’s consideration. Consequently, the crime of murder in the first degree was properly submitted to the jury as a permissible verdict.
I proceed on the assumption, as the main opinion apparently does, that the relevant admissions of the defendant are to be accepted. This is appropriate, by reason of the lack of other and contradictory evidence. Disbelief of the defendant’s statements would leave the jury with no detailed evidence of the occurrence. Even if the jury chose to accept as true only part of the defendant’s admissions, it is apparent that the case against the defendant would not be bolstered.
The crucial statements of the defendant, summarized in the main opinion were as follows: “The victim laughed at the defendant and told him she had wasted her evening. He asked her to stop laughing at him and she continued, so he put his hand over her mouth to stop her. She still continued to laugh and he slapped or struck her. She started to yell and tried to leave. He then grabbed a piece of cord or twine from a table, wrapped it around her neck, and applied pressure. He saw blood coming from her nose and mouth and thought he had killed her. He put her body on a couch and then left the apartment. In leaving the apartment the defendant wdped the doorknob to eliminate fingerprints and took with him the empty beer cans and the victim’s pocketbook. He disposed of the victim’s automobile driving license and the keys to her apartment and automobile by throwing them away in some tall grass and shrubbery to the rear of the apartment complex where he lived. The police found the items there on August 19,1974.”
The main opinion analyzes the evidence in somewhat persuasive language, but it accepts, as I do, the language of Commonwealth v. Tucker, 189 Mass. 457 (1905), as the controlling law. That case says at 495: “First the deliberation and premeditation, then the resolution to kill, and lastly the killing in pursuance of the resolution; and all this may occur in a few seconds” (emphasis supplied). In my view, the main opinion, while recognizing the rule *157of Tucker as controlling, has here departed from the principles of that case.
I do not reach, and the main opinion did not have to reach, the question whether, in an exercise of this court’s discretionary power under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, the verdict should be reduced to a conviction of murder in the second degree. Perhaps the court might have concluded that the weight of the evidence was such that justice indicated such a reduction of the verdict under § 33E. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Williams, 364 Mass. 145, 150-152 (1973). Such a result could be reached without eroding, as I fear the approach of the main opinion does, the rule of Tucker.