Court Opinion

ID: 9439888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:50:22.679445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:40.038737
License: Public Domain

STAHL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
With respect, I dissent. I agree with the district court that the evidence was not adequate for a jury to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Stewart was involved in a joint venture to commit murder. See Stewart v. Coalter, 855 F.Supp. 464 (D.Mass.1994). Unlike the majority, I am “loathe to stack inference upon inference in order to uphold the jury’s verdict.” United States v. Valerio, 48 F.3d 58, 64 (1st Cir.1995) (citing Ingram v. United States, 360 U.S. 672, 680, 79 S.Ct. 1314, 1320, 3 L.Ed.2d 1503 (1959)).
For the jury to return a verdict of second-degree murder, it had to find that Good planned to kill or do grievous bodily harm, that Stewart was aware of Good’s plan, and that Stewart intended to aid Good in carrying it out. Commonwealth v. Stewart, 411 Mass. 345, 582 N.E.2d 514, 518 n. 3 (1991). I cannot see how a rational jury could have found, beyond reasonable doubt, that Stewart had such knowledge and intent. At most, I think that Stewart might have been convicted as an accessory to murder after the fact, a crime with which he was never charged.
There is no evidence that Stewart and Good entered into a joint venture to kill Perry. When one reads the record, it is not “reasonably clear” that Stewart and Good had been looking for Perry so that Good could kill him. In fact, it is not even clear that Stewart knew Perry at all.2 It is undisputed that neither Stewart nor Good could have known of Perry’s two calls to his former wife, during the second of which she finally agreed to meet him at a restaurant in Inman Square, Cambridge, or that Perry would be proceeding west on Cambridge Street. It is a significant stretch to say that Stewart parked his car on a side street to permit a quick getaway should Good fortuitously accost Perry, especially since Good lived nearby. Nor is there evidence that Stewart parked the car where he did because it was a convenient place to await Good’s return after killing Perry, whom they had just happened *618to see.3 Even if one accepts as true the disputed testimony concerning Stewart’s lies to the police after the intersection accident, those lies do not prove that he was privy to the crime in advance; at best, they support the accessory argument.
In order to find the scenario postulated by the majority, one has to conjecture and find evidence where none exists.4 I would grant the writ.

. There is also no evidence that Stewart and Good entered into a joint venture to kill someone at random. In fact, Good was convicted of the first-degree murder of Perry. See Commonwealth v. Stewart, 582 N.E.2d at 515 n. 1.

. I note that the jury, in returning a verdict of second-degree murder, necessarily found that Stewart did not premeditate.

. I also disagree with the majority's speculation that the current Supreme Court would abandon the Jackson rule requiring us to determine "whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found evidence sufficient to prove the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt," Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 324, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2791-92, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (emphasis in original), in favor of the Jackson concurrers' more limited inquiry into whether there was some evidence to support the disputed finding, see id. at 326, 99 S.Ct. at 2792-93 (Stevens concurring). Majority at 613. I note that the Court recently, in the context of constitutional trial errors, made habe-as review more, not less, generous. O'Neal v. McAninch, - U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 992, 130 L.Ed.2d 947 (1995).