Court Opinion

ID: 9958435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-09 14:05:38.00746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:22.292292
License: Public Domain

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SJC-13403

                  COMMONWEALTH   vs.   SAM SMITH.

                         April 9, 2024.

Supreme Judicial Court, Appeal from order of single justice.
     Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Postconviction relief.

     The defendant, Sam Smith, stands convicted of murder in the
first degree. Currently before the court is the defendant's
purported appeal from the judgment of a single justice of this
court denying without a hearing his motion for reconsideration
of the denial of a gatekeeper petition pursuant to G. L. c. 278,
§ 33E. But the denial of a gatekeeper petition is final and
unreviewable. See Commonwealth v. Billingslea, 484 Mass. 606,
621 (2020). The defendant nevertheless argues that his case
falls outside this rule because a gatekeeper petition was
unnecessary in light of this court's decision in Commonwealth v.
Lee, 479 Mass. 558, 561 (2018). We disagree, and so we dismiss
this appeal.

     Background. The defendant was convicted by a jury in 2001
of murder in the first degree. During jury empanelment, the
Commonwealth challenged a prospective juror for cause on the
purported ground of a perceived transgender identity. Defense
counsel interpreted this as a challenge based on the prospective
juror's perceived homosexuality. When the prosecutor reiterated
that it was based on transgender identity, defense counsel said:
"[T]he Commonwealth all but just admitted a Batson1 violation

     1 See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 89 (1986) ("the Equal
Protection Clause forbids the prosecutor to challenge potential
jurors solely on account of their race"); Commonwealth v.
Soares, 377 Mass. 461, 486, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 881 (1979),
                                                                   2

right here," and again, "The Commonwealth has all but admitted a
Batson violation . . . ." The original transcript of the
proceeding incorrectly recorded these two statements as: "[T]he
Commonwealth all but just admitted a challenge violation right
here," and "The Commonwealth has all but admitted a violation
. . . ."

     The trial judge refused to strike the prospective juror for
cause, and the Commonwealth exercised a peremptory challenge, at
which point defense counsel stated, "I'd like to put on the
record that I'm beginning to see a pattern on the basis of the
Commonwealth [sic] with the exclusion of a homosexual, white
male. So I want to put that on the record as well. . . . For
the court's consideration."

     In 2008, this court heard and decided the defendant's
direct appeal and his appeal of the denial of his first motion
for new trial. See Commonwealth v. Smith, 450 Mass. 395, 396,
cert. denied, 555 U.S. 893 (2008). In that decision, the court
considered at length the defendant's arguments that the
Commonwealth violated art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration
of Rights, as well as the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, when it
exercised a peremptory challenge on the basis of the prospective
juror's perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity.
See id. at 404-407. The court analyzed the record with specific
reference to the rule of Commonwealth v. Soares, 377 Mass. 461,
486, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 881 (1979), overruled in part by
Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 485 Mass. 491, 511 (2020). See Smith,
supra at 405-407. It found that "defense counsel did not make
an explicit objection to the challenge, and instead only 'put on
the record' that she was 'beginning to see a pattern' of
removing white male homosexuals." Id. at 406. The court
concluded that "defense counsel neither objected to the
prosecutor's challenge nor asserted that a pattern of improper
exclusion actually had been established" and so did not "trigger
an obligation on the judge's part to make a finding whether the
presumption of propriety was rebutted." Id. Moreover, the
court explained that "given the factual uncertainty in this case
about what, if any, discrete 'grouping' the juror might fit
into, it was not error" for the judge to fail to raise this
issue sua sponte. Id. On this latter point, the court noted

overruled in part by Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 485 Mass. 491, 511
(2020) (holding art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of
Rights proscribes peremptory challenge based solely on
prospective juror's membership in certain defined groups).
                                                                     3

that the prosecutor and defense counsel disagreed about the
basis for the challenge, and that apart from superficial
observations about the prospective juror's appearance, the
record supplied no more information as to whether the juror was
homosexual or transgender. Id. at 405-406. The record
therefore lacked clarity regarding "the juror's sex,
transgendered status, and sexual orientation, as well as the
motive or reason for the prosecutor's challenge." Id. at 407.
In light of these deficiencies in the record, the court declined
to decide at that time whether it would violate art. 12 or the
equal protection clause to strike a juror on the basis of sexual
orientation or transgender identity.2 Id. at 405. In the end,
the court affirmed the defendant's conviction and the order
denying his motion for new trial. Id. at 410. The defendant
moved for rehearing, and the motion was denied.

     The defendant's appellate counsel represents that in 2011,
the above-described error in the transcript was discovered. In
the Superior Court, the defendant filed a "motion for collateral
relief"3 based on the error in the transcript. In ruling on the
motion, the Superior Court judge found that trial counsel had
made a timely and explicit Batson objection. Even so, she
denied the motion because the issue was already addressed in
this court's prior decision, and the change to the transcript
did not affect the other factors in this court's analysis.

     In March 2013, a single justice of this court denied the
defendant's resulting first gatekeeper petition, brought
pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E. The single justice concluded

     2 In 2021, this court held "that a peremptory challenge
based on a prospective juror's sexual orientation is prohibited
by arts. 1 and 12 and the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment." Commonwealth v. Carter, 488 Mass. 191,
201 (2021). See Commonwealth v. Robertson, 480 Mass. 383, 395
(2018) ("where a juror's membership in a protected class is
reasonably in dispute, trial judges, in performing the first
step of the Batson-Soares analysis, ought to presume that the
juror is a member of the protected class at issue"). In Carter,
however, the court concluded as to a somewhat similar challenge
that "there were insufficient facts in the record to reasonably
establish [the prospective juror's] sexual orientation, and thus
the defense did not satisfy its burden of production under the
first step of the Batson-Soares inquiry with respect to that
particular challenge." Carter, supra at 204.

     3   This motion was treated as a second motion for new trial.
                                                                    4

that despite an explicit Batson objection, the issue was not
new, having been previously analyzed by the full court, and
further, that the change to the transcript affected only one
factor in the full court's analysis.

     Meanwhile, in the Superior Court, the defendant moved for a
Batson hearing and then brought a third motion for collateral
relief,4 which "repeat[ed] the request." Both motions were
denied by the Superior Court judge.

     Following these decisions, the defendant filed a second
gatekeeper petition raising the same issue, and in December
2014, a single justice of this court denied the petition. The
single justice concluded that the issue was not new, having been
addressed on direct appeal, in the defendant's motions for new
trial, and in the first gatekeeper petition. Further, the
single justice concluded that the issue was not substantial,
given that the lack of clarity in the record did not support the
necessity of a Batson hearing.

     In May 2018, this court decided Lee, 479 Mass. at 561, upon
which the defendant relies to support the April 2022 motion for
reconsideration at issue here. In that motion, the defendant
moved for reconsideration of the 2013 decision denying his first
gatekeeper petition, in which he sought leave to appeal from the
denial of his second motion for a new trial. In denying the
motion for reconsideration, a different single justice (the
single justice who denied the first gatekeeper petition having
retired) concluded that the issue was neither new nor
substantial, and he found that the discrepancy in the transcript
had not prevented the full court from addressing this issue.
The single justice further concluded that the motion was
untimely. The defendant purports to appeal the denial of his
motion on the ground that the transcript discrepancy deprived
him of a review of his "whole case," as required by G. L.
c. 278, § 33E. See Billingslea, 484 Mass. at 617.

     Discussion. We do not review the single justice's
determination that this issue was not "new and substantial," and
for his part, the defendant does not purport to appeal that
determination. See Billingslea, 484 Mass. at 621 ("The ruling
of a single justice, acting as a gatekeeper, that the
application does not present a new and substantial question is
final and unreviewable by the full court"). Rather, we address
the defendant's argument that he did not receive plenary review

     4   This motion was treated as a third motion for new trial.
                                                                  5

and so was entitled to bypass the gatekeeper requirements of
§ 33E, including the prerequisite that a single justice
determine that his appeal raises an issue that is "new and
substantial." As noted supra, the defendant's argument is based
on this court's decision in Lee, 479 Mass. at 561, which
authorized the defendant in that case to bypass gatekeeper
review under certain limited circumstances.

     But Lee's conclusion does not apply here. On the contrary,
permission to bypass the gatekeeper was expressly limited in Lee
to "any issue that was not apparent from the transcript and
could only be discovered from the audio recording of the
proceedings." Lee, 479 Mass. at 561. Here, the issue was
evident from the transcript. The differences relied on by the
defendant between the erroneous and corrected transcripts are
two specific references to Batson. Even without these
corrections, however, it was plain that these statements
referred to a potential violation under the Batson-Soares lines
of cases, and indeed, this court analyzed the issue at length
under those very rubrics. See Smith, 450 Mass. at 404-407.

     In sum, this case presents "no reason to depart from our
longstanding and well-established rule" that the decision of a
gatekeeper pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E, is final and
unreviewable. See Commonwealth v. Robinson, 477 Mass. 1008,
1008-1009 (2017).5

                                   Appeal dismissed.

     The case was submitted on briefs.
     Eva G. Jellison for the defendant.
     Ian MacLean, Assistant District Attorney, for the
Commonwealth.

     5 Consequently, we need not address the defendant's
challenge to the single justice's determination that the motion
was untimely.