Commonwealth v. Woods (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-001-14)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC‑10793 COMMONWEALTH vs. THOMAS A. WOODS. Plymouth. September 10, 2013. ‑ January 2, 2014. Present: Ireland, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Gants, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ. Homicide. Joint Enterprise. Evidence, Joint enterprise, Intent, Motive, Consciousness of guilt, Testimony before grand jury, Voluntariness of statement. Intent. Grand Jury. Constitutional Law, Grand jury, Self‑incrimination, Voluntariness of statement, Assistance of counsel. Witness, Self‑incrimination. Practice, Criminal, Grand jury proceedings, Voluntariness of statement, Request for jury instructions, Assistance of counsel, Capital case. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on October 5, 2006. The case was tried before by Paul E. Troy, J. Myles Jacobson for the defendant. Mary Lee, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. CORDY, J. In the early morning hours of December 2, 2005, the defendant, Thomas A. Woods, and the victim, Paul Mullen, left a nightclub and agreed to meet later to smoke marijuana. The defendant drove to the local Hess gasoline station located in the city of Brockton, which was a popular late-night meeting place. When the victim telephoned the defendant to ask where he was, the defendant told him he was at Hess, and the victim said he would be right there. Once the victim arrived, the defendant asked him to sit in the driver’s side seat and roll a marijuana “blunt,” while he went into the store to buy some pizza. While the defendant made idle conversation with the cashier inside the station, two masked men approached the vehicle and one shot the victim eight times, killing him almost instantly. The defendant went to the vehicle, laid the victim on the ground, and drove to his girl friend’s house, where he was seen talking to a man similar in description to the shooter. The defendant later gave two noncustodial interviews to police, and testified before the grand jury as a witness. After further investigation, he was indicted and tried for murder in the first degree. On May 20, 2009, the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. On appeal, the defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient to prove his guilt as a joint venturer. He contends that the Commonwealth’s case, which relied almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, did not include any direct evidence that he knew […]