Commonwealth v. Bresilla (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-005-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-10837 COMMONWEALTH vs. ELYSEE BRESILLA. Middlesex. October 10, 2014. – January 16, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Cordy, Botsford, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Homicide. Firearms. Evidence, Firearm, Identification, Relevancy and materiality. Identification. Constitutional Law, Identification. Due Process of Law, Identification of inanimate object. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Motion to suppress, Identification of defendant in courtroom, Conduct of prosecutor, Argument by prosecutor, Request for jury instructions, New trial. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on June 6, 2006. Pretrial motions to suppress evidence were heard by Diane M. Kottmyer, J; the cases were tried before Sandra L. Hamlin, J., and a motion for a new trial, filed on August 12, 2011, was considered by her. James W. Rosseel for the defendant. Fawn D. Balliro Andersen, Assistant District Attorney (Nicole L. Allain, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the Commonwealth. CORDY, J. In the early morning hours of March 28, 2006, Doowensky Nazaire was shot and killed in front of a night club in Cambridge. Although the firearm was never recovered, the evidence implicating the defendant, Elysee Bresilla, as the shooter was substantial. Within minutes of the shooting, Cambridge police officers found the defendant crouching in the yard of a nearby residence. Within an hour, the police had performed a showup with a witness who identified the defendant as the shooter. Two eyewitnesses who knew the defendant came forward and identified him as the shooter. The defendant’s hands tested positive for gunshot primer residue. In the path of flight described by numerous witnesses, the police found the defendant’s discarded brown leather jacket. On the night of the shooting, two witnesses identified that jacket as the one worn by the shooter. The defendant was indicted on charges of murder in the first degree under theories of premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty, and possession of a firearm without a firearm identification (FID) card, in violation of G. L. c. 269, § 10 (h) (1). The defendant filed motions to suppress the identifications of himself and his jacket, which motions were denied. At trial, the defendant primarily challenged the identification evidence and the procedures employed by the Cambridge police in obtaining that evidence. A jury convicted the defendant of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation, and […]