Court Opinion

ID: 9917454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-12 15:06:38.980057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:03:04.954089
License: Public Domain

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SJC-13399

               COMMONWEALTH   vs.   ELVIO J. MARRERO.

       Franklin.      October 4, 2023. - January 12, 2024.

 Present:   Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt,
                           & Georges, JJ.

Homicide. Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Practice, Criminal,
     Postconviction relief, New trial.

     Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court
Department on December 7, 1994.

     Following review by this court, 427 Mass. 65 (1998), a
motion for a new trial, filed on April 14, 2020, was heard by
Michael K. Callan, J.

     A request for leave to appeal was allowed by Lowy, J., in
the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk.

     Ira L. Gant, Committee for Public Counsel Services (Lauren
V. Jacobs also present) for the defendant.
     Bethany C. Lynch, Assistant District Attorney, for the
Commonwealth.
     The following submitted briefs for amici curiae:
     Jessica Lewis & Joshua M. Daniels for American Civil
Liberties Union of Massachusetts & another.
     Andrew Shear, Hannah Freedman, & Natalie Baker, of New
York, Stephanie Roberts Hartung, John P. Bueker, & Scott S.
Taylor for Innocence Project, Inc., & another.
                                                                      2

     Martin W. Healy, Thomas J. Carey, Jr., & Donna Jalbert
Patalano for Massachusetts Bar Association.

    LOWY, J.   When he was arrested for the murder of Pernell

Kimplin, the defendant Elvio Marrero had with him a distinctive

black leather jacket.   Police testing discovered blood inside

the sleeves of the jacket, and, due to the small quantity of

blood, the forensic tests performed could not exclude the victim

as a source of that blood.

    At trial, numerous witnesses testified that they saw the

defendant wearing the jacket on the day of the murder.

Crucially, the first witness that interacted with the defendant

after the victim's death testified that she saw the defendant

with blood on his hands and arms, wearing that same jacket.     In

its closing argument, the Commonwealth linked the bloodstains on

the jacket to her testimony, and urged the jury to conclude that

the blood was the victim's.   A conviction followed, which we

affirmed in Commonwealth v. Marrero, 427 Mass. 65, 65 (1998).

    Twenty years after the trial, however, the connection the

prosecutor argued in closing was disproved:   postconviction

deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing definitively excluded the

victim as a source of the blood on the defendant's jacket.      The

defendant's motion for a new trial on that basis was denied, and

a single justice in the county court granted leave to appeal.
                                                                     3

    Because the blood on the jacket was the strongest physical

evidence tying the defendant to the murder, and because the

Commonwealth used it to corroborate the testimony of a vital

witness with credibility issues, we conclude that it was a real

factor in the jury's deliberations.    Consequently, had the new

test results been admitted in evidence, and the Commonwealth

been unable to connect the bloodstains to the murder, there is a

substantial risk that the outcome of the trial would have been

different.   We therefore vacate the defendant's conviction and

remand for a new trial.

    Background.     The victim was found bound and stabbed to

death in his apartment in Greenfield on October 16, 1994.     The

defendant, who regularly sold drugs to the victim, was known to

carry a knife and had a history of violence.     The police

investigation focused on him after interviews with several of

the defendant's other drug customers placed the defendant at the

victim's apartment at the time of the killing.

    To assess the possible effect of the new analysis on the

jury, we examine the evidence introduced at trial and consider

how it factored into the arguments made by the prosecution and

defense.

    1.     Commonwealth's case.   The medical examiner opined that

the victim died on or about October 14, 1994; the Commonwealth

therefore relied on a series of witnesses to establish a
                                                                     4

timeline of the defendant's whereabouts and place him at the

victim's apartment on that date.

       Jerry Desbiens -- who, like the victim, regularly acquired

drugs from the defendant -- testified that, on October 13, the

defendant had asked the victim if he could stay at the victim's

apartment that night, and that the victim agreed and gave the

defendant a key.    Later that day, Desbiens drove the defendant,

who was wearing a black leather jacket, to the victim's

apartment.

       The victim's friend, David Prest, visited the victim's

apartment that night from 10:30 P.M. to about 11:45 P.M. or 12

A.M.    Prest saw the defendant lying on a mattress, seemingly

asleep.    When Prest departed, the defendant and the victim were

alone.    That was the last time any witness saw the victim alive.

       Lynn Morehouse, another customer of the defendant,

testified that the defendant crawled through her apartment

window at around 2 A.M. on October 14.    He was pacing, nervous,

and afraid, and he repeatedly asked her to go next door to ask

Desbiens to give him a ride.    She refused.   Morehouse also

testified that the defendant wore a black leather jacket and,

crucially, that he had dried blood on his hands and arms.

       Another customer of the defendant, David Lucas, testified

that the defendant came to his apartment sometime between 6 A.M.

and 8 A.M.   The defendant told Lucas and Charles Johnson, who
                                                                   5

was also present, that police were after him.   The defendant

appeared extremely nervous and excited, and he was wearing the

black leather jacket that "[he wore] all the time," according to

Lucas.   Lucas also testified that he and Johnson took the

defendant to Desbiens's house to see whether Desbiens would give

the defendant a ride in exchange for cocaine.

     Desbiens agreed and gave the defendant a one-half hour long

ride to Chicopee at around 10:30 A.M.   According to Desbiens,

during the ride the defendant confided that he had been hit in

the head, and that the police were chasing him.   Desbiens again

testified that the defendant wore a black leather jacket.

     Finally, another witness, Isidro Herrera, testified that he

gave the defendant a roundtrip ride between Holyoke and Chicopee

at around noon, although he could not remember the specific day.

According to Herrera, the defendant confided that he had killed

someone with a knife, police were chasing him, and he needed

money to fly to the Dominican Republic.1

     These testimonial accounts were vital to the Commonwealth's

case, as there was minimal physical evidence implicating the

defendant.   We described the crime scene in the defendant's

direct appeal:

     1 We note that, as damning as Herrera's testimony looks on
the page, the prosecutor did not refer to him at all in closing
argument.
                                                                     6

     "The victim, Pernell R. Kimplin, was found dead in his
     apartment in Greenfield on October 16, 1994. He was
     gagged, and his hands and feet were 'hog-tied' with
     electrical cords and rope. He had been stabbed once in the
     chest and once in the back. He also had been beaten about
     his head, neck, shoulders, and back with a wooden board
     broken from a dresser drawer. The medical examiner opined
     that the victim died on or about October 14, 1994, as a
     result of the stab wounds."

Marrero, 427 Mass. at 66.   Blood samples recovered from the

victim's kitchen, living room, threshold, and door were tested

and compared to the blood of the defendant and the victim.2    The

Commonwealth's chemist testified that she attempted to perform

six different tests on the samples, but that three of those

tests could not yield conclusive results -- one because she

could not accurately obtain a baseline sample from the victim,

and two because the victim and defendant shared certain blood

subtypes, which meant that the tests would not discriminate

between the two men.

     For most of the approximately twenty samples, the chemist

testified that the defendant was excluded as a source.   However,

she testified that she could not exclude the defendant as the

source from four of the samples, because those samples could

only be subjected to the inconclusive tests.

     2 Police also recovered a knife from the apartment, and the
Commonwealth's expert testified that human tissue on the blade
was from the victim.
                                                                    7

     Similar results were obtained from forensic examination of

the defendant's black leather jacket, which was seized from him

upon his arrest.3   Blood was detected on the inner sleeves and a

back panel of the jacket, but due to the small quantity, testing

at the time could not determine whose blood it was.

Nevertheless, at closing, the Commonwealth invited the jury to

infer that the blood was the victim's and explicitly argued that

the results corroborated Morehouse's testimony:

     "[The forensic expert] talked about that test resulting in
     a positive for the presence of blood, and the presence of
     blood in the front of that jacket was in each and every
     quadrant, top and bottom; in the area -- well, on the top
     two quadrants of the sleeves, inside. And isn't that
     consistent with a person who had bloody hands and then put
     that jacket on, and the contact would be to the interior
     areas of that jacket? And that corroborates . . .
     Morehouse's testimony."

     Finally, investigators matched fingerprints from the

victim's apartment to two other individuals.4    A fingerprint

matching the defendant was found on the underside of a folding

chair, beneath a trash bag and laundry basket.    And a

fingerprint matching Johnson was recovered from the overturned

     3 On February 12, 1995, the defendant flew from the
Dominican Republic to the John F. Kennedy International (JFK)
Airport in New York, where he was arrested pursuant to a
Massachusetts warrant. With him was his black leather jacket.
During his interview with authorities at the airport, the
defendant was evasive and at times untruthful; the Commonwealth
argued this as consciousness of guilt.

     4 Police also collected fingerprints from Morehouse's
apartment, none of which belonged to the defendant.
                                                                      8

television that was the source of a cord used to tie up the

victim.

    2.    Defense theories.   In addition to attempting to induce

reasonable doubt by attacking the credibility of the

Commonwealth's witnesses -- a topic we discuss in further depth

infra -- the defense advanced two main theories:     third-party

culprit and alibi.   Johnson's fingerprint was a keystone of the

former.   The defense argued that the victim was killed by either

Johnson or Lucas (or both acting in concert), pointing not only

to the fingerprint but also to evidence of motive:     Johnson and

Lucas both sold drugs to the victim, and both had made several

aggressive attempts to collect money from the victim, including

assaulting him.   There was also testimony that Johnson had a key

to the victim's apartment.

    In addition to arguing that Johnson or Lucas killed the

victim, the defendant also argued alibi:    he claimed that he was

out of the country at the alleged time of death.     The foundation

of this defense was a flight record produced midtrial, which an

airline employee testified showed that (1) a reservation was

made on October 13 through a travel agency with a telephone

number with a western Massachusetts area code, and (2) on

October 14 an "E. Marrero" checked in at John F. Kennedy

International Airport in New York at 5:19 A.M. and boarded a

7 A.M. flight to the Dominican Republic.
                                                                     9

     These times directly contradicted the testimony of Lucas

and Desbiens, which was that they had interacted with the

defendant as late as 8 A.M. and 10:30 A.M. on October 14,

respectively.    The defense argued that the flight record also

cast doubt on whether the defendant could have been in

Morehouse's apartment at 2 A.M.

     In rebuttal, the Commonwealth argued that another "E.

Marrero" had taken the flight5 or, alternatively, that the

defendant made the reservation and had someone else take the

flight.6

     3.    Verdict and posttrial events.   The jury convicted the

defendant of murder in the first degree on the theories of

premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty.     We affirmed the

conviction in Marrero, 427 Mass. at 65.     In 2002, the defendant

filed his first motion for a new trial, which was denied, and in

     5 In support of this point the Commonwealth called in
rebuttal a record keeper from the telephone company serving New
York City, who testified that the directories for the Bronx and
Queens contained a combined twenty-six listings for individuals
named "E. Marrero."

     6 In support of this point, the Commonwealth called in
rebuttal the owner of a travel agency in Springfield that the
defendant was known to use. His equivocal testimony was only
that he had no internal record of the reservation in question,
but that he would not expect to, given his record-keeping
practices.
                                                                  10

2011, his motion for DNA testing pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P.

30 (c), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001), was also denied.

     In 2017 a second motion for DNA testing, this one made

under G. L. c. 287A, was granted.   The resulting DNA tests

excluded the victim as a source of DNA from the blood found on

the defendant's jacket,7 prompting the defendant to file the 2020

motion for a new trial that is the subject of this appeal.    A

Superior Court judge denied the motion, and a single justice in

the county court allowed the defendant's G. L. c. 278, § 33E,

"gatekeeper" petition for leave to appeal.

     Discussion.8   Where, as here, a motion for a new trial is

premised on "newly available analysis that would remove from the

jury's consideration evidence admitted at trial in the

Commonwealth's case, . . . we ask whether the inculpatory

evidence likely was a 'real factor' in the jury's deliberations

such that its elimination would cast real doubt on the justice

of the defendant's conviction" (quotation omitted).

     7 The testing also excluded the defendant as a source of
blood samples recovered from the victim's apartment, and showed
partial DNA profile matches with the victim.

     8 In his motion for a new trial and again on appeal, the
defendant advances multiple arguments, including that the
prosecution failed to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence
related to the flight record. As we determine that the results
of the postconviction testing on the defendant's jacket are
sufficient to require a new trial, we confine our discussion to
that issue.
                                                                     11

Commonwealth v. Cowels, 470 Mass. 607, 618 (2015).     See Mass. R.

Crim. P. 30 (b), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001).     Because

the motion judge was not the trial judge and took no evidence on

this issue, our review is de novo.    See Commonwealth v. Mazza,

484 Mass. 539, 547 (2020).

    We have ordered a new trial in two cases involving murder

in the first degree under circumstances closely paralleling

those in the instant case.   In Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 469

Mass. 340 (2014), the Commonwealth's key percipient witness

identified a purple jacket as the same one the defendant was

wearing during the killing, and the Commonwealth offered expert

testimony that the jacket tested positive for blood on both

cuffs.   Id. at 345.   The key witness's credibility was

challenged by extensive testimony from defense witnesses, which

suggested a third-party culprit.     Id. at 346-348.   In closing,

the prosecutor argued that the jury should credit her account

that the defendant was the killer, because the blood on the

jacket corroborated her testimony.    Id. at 349.   Postconviction

testing revealed that the victim's blood was not present.     Id.

at 340-341.

    In Cowels, 470 Mass. at 607-608, the Commonwealth

introduced two bloodied towels at trial.    The forensic testing

available at that time was inconclusive:    neither the defendants

nor the victim could be identified or excluded as the source of
                                                                    12

the blood.   Id. at 608.   The Commonwealth's star witness

testified that the defendants used his bathroom to clean

themselves after killing the victim, and, after "his credibility

was extensively impeached during cross-examination," the

Commonwealth argued in closing that the towels, which were

recovered from the witness's bathroom, corroborated his

testimony.   Id. at 609-610.   Postconviction testing on one of

the towels, however, was able to definitively exclude both

defendants and the victim as possible sources of the blood.       Id.

at 608.

    In both Sullivan and Cowels, we identified the same two

factors that were central to our evaluation of the evidence

affected by the new test results, and thus central to our

decision to grant a new trial.    The first was that the physical

evidence at issue was critical to the Commonwealth's case

because of a paucity of other physical evidence connecting the

defendants to the killings.    See Cowels, 470 Mass. at 619 ("The

only physical evidence that the Commonwealth offered linking the

defendants to the crime was the towels, Cowels's sneaker, and

the vaginal swab"); Sullivan, 469 Mass. at 352 (pieces of

evidence negated by testing were important "because they served

as the sole pieces of physical evidence indicating the defendant

had been in the presence of the victim during the killing").

The second, related factor was that in each case the
                                                                   13

Commonwealth had used the physical evidence in question to

corroborate the testimony of a key, but embattled, witness.    See

Cowels, supra at 620 ("Here, the towels were the only physical

evidence corroborating a key element of an important prosecution

witness's testimony, and functioned to reinforce [witness's]

severely challenged credibility"); Sullivan, supra at 353 ("the

evidence was probably a real factor in the jury's deliberations

because it was one of the pieces of physical evidence that the

prosecution pointed to more than once in closing as a basis on

which to credit [Commonwealth witness's] testimony over that of

[defense witness]").

     Both factors are present in the instant case.   The

bloodstains on the jacket were the most vital piece of physical

evidence offered by the Commonwealth.   Although there was

extensive testimony as to the state of the crime scene and

results of various forensic tests, no other physical evidence

directly implicated the defendant.9   See Sullivan, 469 Mass. at

     9 We acknowledge that investigators found the defendant's
fingerprint on the bottom of a chair located in the victim's
apartment. However, there was no dispute that the defendant had
been in the apartment, and the print was recovered from the
underside of a chair that was itself located under other
household objects. Moreover, the other single fingerprint
recovered from the apartment, Johnson's, was found on an
overturned television -- the same television from which a cord
had been torn and used to bind the victim -- supporting the
defendant's third-party culprit theory. Thus, although the
presence of the fingerprint precludes us from saying that the
bloodstains on the jacket were the only physical evidence
                                                                  14

353 ("Without the purple jacket, the defendant could have argued

at closing that not one piece of physical evidence linked the

defendant directly to the killing of the victim").   Of all the

physical evidence, only the bloodied jacket allowed the

Commonwealth to argue that the defendant was in the victim's

apartment, at the time of the killing, with the victim's blood

on his hands.   See id.   Contrast Commonwealth v. Duguay, 492

Mass. 520, 534 (2023) (new test results did not merit new trial

where "there were numerous other pieces of physical evidence

. . . that would still link the defendant to the murder").

     In addition to arguing for the jury to infer that the blood

on the jacket was the victim's, the Commonwealth also used the

bloodstained jacket to buttress the testimony of Morehouse.

Morehouse was an important witness.   Her testimony was the first

account of the defendant after the killing, and the vivid

content of that testimony -- him desperately stealing into her

apartment with bloody hands -- was the most inculpatory

eyewitness testimony at trial.10

connecting the defendant to the crime, we have no problem
concluding that the bloodstains were key to the Commonwealth's
case in a way the fingerprint was not. See Sullivan, 469 Mass.
at 352-353 (highlighting importance of defendant's bloody jacket
where "physical evidence also tied [the prosecution's key
witness] to the killings, including his bloody fingerprint on
the inside passenger side of the defendant's car").

     10Her testimony of seeing the defendant in her apartment at
2 A.M. on October 14 was also the only account from that day
                                                                  15

    And as with the key witnesses in Sullivan and Cowels,

Morehouse suffered from credibility issues.   The jury learned

that, at her first interview with police, she denied seeing the

defendant with the victim on October 13 at all, and denied

seeing the defendant the next morning.   She also admitted to

drug use, and to calling the police on the defendant multiple

times.   See Cowels, 470 Mass. at 619 (key prosecution witness

was, "[i]n the prosecutor's own words, . . . 'a junkie' with a

'checkered background' and a 'long criminal record,'" had given

contradicting accounts to police, and had motive to implicate

defendant).   Where the prosecutor argued to the jury that the

blood on the jacket corroborated her testimony, the newly

available analysis is not merely impeachment evidence, but

rather "negates a key piece of physical evidence that the

prosecution relied on in arguing that the jury should credit

[Morehouse's] testimony."   Sullivan, 469 Mass. at 352.

    "We acknowledge, as did the motion judge, that much of the

evidence the Commonwealth presented against the defendant

remains, and that the Commonwealth may have been able to carry

its burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant

committed murder in the first degree even without the evidence

that could theoretically be reconciled with the flight record,
which, if credited by the jury, placed the defendant at the
check-in counter at JFK Airport at 5:19 A.M.
                                                                    16

of the [leather] jacket."    Sullivan, 469 Mass. at 353.   We

further acknowledge that, viewing the evidence as a whole, this

case presents a closer question than Sullivan or Cowels.     But

ultimately, "our inquiry is not whether the verdict may have

been different, but whether the evidence in question probably

served as a real factor in the jury's deliberations."      Sullivan,

supra.   Where the bloodstained jacket was the most important

piece of physical evidence offered to connect the defendant to

the crime, and where the prosecutor further used the jacket to

corroborate the most important testimonial evidence -- evidence

given by a witness with credibility issues -- we conclude that

the bloodstains likely were a real factor in the jury's

deliberations.    We do not opine on the defendant's guilt or

innocence, but we are bound to ensure that such guilt or

innocence is determined justly.    Accordingly, a new trial is

required.    See Cowels, 470 Mass. at 623.

    Conclusion.     The judgment of conviction is vacated and set

aside, and the matter is remanded to the Superior Court for a

new trial.

                                     So ordered.