Commonwealth v. Fritz (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-131-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-07763 COMMONWEALTH vs. SHAWN T. FRITZ. Suffolk. May 4, 2015. – July 29, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, & Hines, JJ. Homicide. Firearms. Constitutional Law, Public trial, Jury, Conduct of government agents, Confrontation of witnesses. Jury and Jurors. Evidence, Relevancy and materiality, Motive, Admission by silence, Expert opinion, Consciousness of guilt, Cross-examination, Credibility of witness. Witness, Expert, Credibility. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, New trial, Severance, Public trial, Jury and jurors, Empanelment of jury, Challenge to jurors, Conduct of government agents, Admissions and confessions, Confrontation of witnesses, Argument by prosecutor, Instructions to jury. Escape. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on December 19, 1994. The cases were tried before Vieri Volterra, J.; a motion for a new trial, filed on November 19, 2009, was considered by Mitchell H. Kaplan, J.; and a motion for a new trial, filed on December 9, 2011, was heard by Linda E. Giles, J. Rosemary Curran Scapicchio for the defendant. Paul B. Linn, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. HINES, J. On October 24, 1996, a jury convicted the defendant, Shawn T. Fritz, of murder in the first degree of Albert Tyler Titcomb, III, on the theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty, and of unlawful possession of a firearm.[1] The defendant’s appeal from his convictions was consolidated with his appeals from the denial of his first two motions for a new trial.[2] He raises a plethora of appellate issues and also asks that we exercise our power under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to grant him a new trial or to reduce the verdict.[3] We affirm his convictions and the orders denying his motions for a new trial, and discern no basis to reduce the verdict or to order a new trial. Background. We summarize the facts the jury could have found. The victim was shot in the head five times at close range in the hallway of 17 Carney Court, an apartment building in the Charlestown section of Boston, at approximately 4 P.M. on November 22, 1994. He died as a result of his wounds. The murder weapon was never recovered. Five discharged .32 caliber automatic cartridge casings and two spent .32 caliber bullets were recovered in the vicinity of the victim’s body. Three […]