Commonwealth v. Colton (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-070-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-08772 COMMONWEALTH vs. NICHOLAS R. COLTON. Middlesex. December 9, 2016. – May 4, 2017. Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Hines, & Gaziano, JJ. Homicide. Constitutional Law, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement, Sentence. Evidence, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement, Joint enterprise, Prior misconduct, Intoxication. Joint Enterprise. Intoxication. Mental Impairment. Jury and Jurors. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Motion to suppress, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement, Instructions to jury, Jury and jurors, Empanelment of jury, Argument by prosecutor, Sentence. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on September 10, 1998. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Charles T. Spurlock, J., and the case was tried before Paul A. Chernoff, J. Michael J. Traft for the defendant. Casey E. Silvia, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. LENK, J. In December, 2000, the defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on theories of extreme atrocity or cruelty and deliberate premeditation in the August, 1998, stabbing death of his cousin, Robert McDonald. At the time of the killing, the defendant was twenty-one years old. On appeal, the defendant argues that a statement he made to police was not voluntary and should not have been admitted at trial. He also challenges certain evidentiary rulings, and he argues that there were errors in the jury instructions and that the judge abused his discretion in failing to dismiss several jurors for cause. In addition, the defendant claims that the prosecutor’s closing argument was improper and that his mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole violates the United States Constitution and the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Finally, the defendant seeks extraordinary relief pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E. Having carefully reviewed the entire record, we discern no error warranting reversal, nor any reason to exercise our authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to reduce the verdict or order a new trial. We therefore affirm the defendant’s conviction. Background. a. Facts. We recite the facts the jury could have found, reserving certain details for later discussion. Day of the stabbing. The victim and the defendant had grown up together and had continued their friendship as adults.[1] On the evening of August 15, 1998, the defendant and his friends Mark Heymann and Kenneth Scott Cronin picked up […]