Commonwealth v. Meas (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-042-14)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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‑11043 COMMONWEALTH vs. JERRY MEAS. Middlesex. November 8, 2013. ‑ March 12, 2014. Present: Ireland, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ. Homicide. Practice, Criminal, Indictment, Loss of evidence by prosecution, Jury and jurors, Instructions to jury, Capital case. Constitutional Law, Indictment, Identification, Jury. Due Process of Law, Identification, Loss of evidence by prosecution. Evidence, Identification, Videotape, Exculpatory, Bias. Identification. Witness, Bias, Immunity. Jury and Jurors. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on June 29, 2006. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Kenneth J. Fishman, J., and the cases were tried before him. David H. Mirsky for the defendant. Jessica Langsam, Assistant District Attorney (Elizabeth Dunigan, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the Commonwealth. IRELAND, C.J. On December 16, 2008, a jury convicted the defendant, Jerry Meas, of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation and of unlawful possession of a firearm.[1] Represented by new counsel on appeal, the defendant argues error in (1) the form of the murder indictment; (2) the denial of his motion to suppress identification evidence; (3) the admission at trial of surveillance videotape recordings; (4) the judge’s limitation on cross-examination of a witness on the issue of bias; (5) the judge’s decision not to discharge a juror; and (6) the judge’s instructions to the jury. We affirm the order denying the defendant’s motion to suppress and affirm his convictions. We discern no basis to exercise our authority pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E. 1. Form of indictment. Contrary to the defendant’s contention, his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were not violated on the ground that the murder indictment did not specify any theory of murder. Because the indictment in this case is in the statutory form prescribed by G. L. c. 277, § 79, it “encompasses all theories of murder in the first degree and is sufficient to charge murder by whatever means it may have been committed.” Commonwealth v. DePace, 442 Mass. 739, 743 (2004), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 980 (2005). The cases to which the defendant cites have no application here. The case of Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 304 (2004), concerns certain constitutional requirements for enhanced penalty sentencing, and Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. […]