Commonwealth v. Lessieur (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-129-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-10784 COMMONWEALTH vs. SHAWN LESSIEUR. Middlesex. April 10, 2015. – July 27, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Homicide. Evidence, Prior consistent statement, Impeachment of credibility, Corroborative evidence, Exculpatory. Witness, Impeachment, Corroboration. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Assistance of counsel, Argument by prosecutor. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on May 8, 2008. The cases were tried before S. Jane Haggerty, J., and a motion for a new trial, filed on May 2, 2011, was heard by her. Leslie W. O’Brien for the defendant. Crystal Lee Lyons, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. HINES, J. On March 17, 1994, Mark Jones was shot twice in the head and died from his injuries. In April, 2006, Nolyn Surprenant (Surprenant) implicated himself and the defendant in the murder. Surprenant was indicted for murder two months later. In March, 2007, Surprenant made an agreement with the Commonwealth to testify against the defendant in exchange for a recommendation of five years in State prison on a manslaughter charge. The defendant was subsequently indicted and, following a jury trial in the Superior Court, was convicted in October, 2009, of murder in the first degree on the theory of deliberate premeditation and also of unlawful possession of a firearm.[1] On May 2, 2011, the defendant filed a motion for a new trial under Mass. R. Crim. P. 30 (b), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001), which was denied. The appeal from the denial of the motion was consolidated with the defendant’s direct appeal. Represented by new counsel on appeal, the defendant challenges: (1) the admission of multiple prior consistent statements; (2) the effectiveness of trial counsel in failing to object to the admission of certain evidence and failing to impeach a witness; (3) the prosecutor’s closing argument; and (4) the viability of the conviction based on uncorroborated testimony and newly discovered evidence. We affirm the defendant’s convictions and the denial of his motion for a new trial, and discern no basis to exercise our authority pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E. Background. We recite the facts the jury could have found based on the Commonwealth’s case. The defendant and Surprenant first met in 1989, when the defendant moved into the foster home where Surprenant, then fourteen […]