Court Opinion

ID: 9722381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:28:09.091158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:34.731627
License: Public Domain

*578Kass, J.
(dissenting). Commonwealth v. Mandile, 403 Mass. 93, 99-102 (1988), and Commonwealth v. Walsh, 407 Mass. 740, 743-745 (1990), indeed, require that before a defendant may be convicted as a joint venturer in murder, the government must present evidence which bears pointedly on a shared intent by the defendant to have the victim attacked in a manner likely to result in death. I think that such an inference is not only permissible, but compelling, on the facts of this case.
Here we have evidence that the defendant participated in a cruel form of target practice in the morning hours of the day of the murder, i.e., the shooting of the cat. There is no difficulty attributing to the defendant knowledge that his friend, John Good, is armed with a weapon that works. Compare Commonwealth v. Walsh, 407 Mass. at 745. One may infer that Good is testing the weapon and his marksmanship or that the pair enjoy shooting and killing. The next relevant fact of which there is evidence is that the defendant parks on a side street the car in which the pair have been cruising. The parking place is three house lengths or so from the intersection of that street, Maple Avenue, with Cambridge Street. The passenger leaves and the defendant stays with the car. For what purpose does the defendant tuck the car away discretely on a side street while his armed friend, Good, marches off? So that Good may buy the Sunday paper?
Then there are shots. Good gallops back to the car (not to his nearby residence) and the defendant instantly (compare Commonwealth v. Mandile, 403 Mass. at 101) drives off at a very high rate of speed. It is possible the defendant made a sprint start intuitively or because of something Good may have said as he rushed back to the car, but surely the jury could infer from the instantaneous quality of the defendant’s departure that he needed no briefing upon Good’s return — because he knew what Good’s errand had been. So desperately does the defendant then maneuver the vehicle through the neighborhood streets that he barges into another car at an intersection. In response to inquiry he displays consciousness of guilt by saying he has been alone.
*579From those facts, I think a jury could infer that the defendant had knowledge of the specific intent of Good to shoot someone and that the defendant made himself available to assist Good in getting away from the scene of the crime. See Commonwealth v. Giang, 402 Mass. 604, 608-610 (1988).
Concerning exclusion of the proffer of testimony by the defendant’s mother that he had called her at 10:00 a.m. to arrange to pick her up at noon, that exclusion is supportable on grounds of too marginal relevance. What the defendant’s plans might have been at 10:00 a.m. have exceedingly little bearing on his homicidal intent at 11:45 a.m. The offer of proof said the mother, who had testified that she worked at Cambridge City Hospital, would further testify that the defendant had proposed picking her up at noon for lunch. As the noon hour approached, however, the defendant did not drive to Cambridge City Hospital but slipped into a parking place on Maple Avenue — and waited. I would affirm the judgment.