Commonwealth v. Keown (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-168-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-10593 COMMONWEALTH vs. JAMES KEOWN. Middlesex. February 10, 2017. – October 23, 2017. Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, & Budd, JJ. Homicide. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Probable cause. Search and Seizure, Computer, Warrant, Affidavit, Probable cause. Probable Cause. Evidence, Information stored on computer, Relevancy and materiality, Inflammatory evidence, Prior misconduct, Hearsay, State of mind, Motive. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Motion to suppress, Argument by prosecutor, Instructions to jury. Dangerous Weapon. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on November 3, 2005. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Sandra L. Hamlin, J., and the case was tried before her. Claudia L. Bolgen for the defendant. Jamie M. Charles, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Eoghan Casey, pro se, amicus curiae, submitted a brief. Gregory T. Nojeim, of the District of Columbia, & Andrew Crocker & Stephanie Lacambra, of California, & Donald S. Bronstein, Committee for Public Counsel Services, & Chauncey B. Wood, Matthew R. Segal, Jessie J. Rossman, Alexis L. Shapiro, & Margaret L. Sullivan, for Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief. LOWY, J. The jury convicted the defendant of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation for poisoning his wife, Julie Keown. On appeal, the defendant argues that (1) the trial judge erred in denying a motion to suppress certain computer evidence because the warrant used to obtain the evidence was defective; (2) the trial judge abused her discretion in declining to exclude evidence related to the defendant’s computer username and Internet search results, the defendant’s prior bad acts, and the victim’s statements and electronic mail (e-mail) messages; (3) the prosecutor’s closing argument was improper; and (4) the trial judge’s instruction to the jury on the inference of malice lowered the Commonwealth’s burden of proof. We affirm the defendant’s conviction and decline to grant relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.[1] Background. We summarize the facts that could have been found by the jury and reserve certain details for the discussion of the issues. On September 4, 2004, the defendant took his wife, the victim, to Newton-Wellesley Hospital (hospital), where she lapsed into a coma from which she would never recover. The victim died on September 8 after being removed from […]