Appeals Court Affirms Involuntary Manslaughter Where Jury Could Doubt Defendant Knew of Knife: Commonwealth v. Robinson (AC 25-P-257, October 19, 2026)

Dravon Robinson kicked a man during a street fight. His coventurer stabbed that man to death. Robinson was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He now argues that the jury got it wrong: the evidence, he says, shows he must have known about the knife, so the verdict should have been murder or nothing. The Appeals Court disagreed and affirmed.

The Facts

On the morning of August 8, 2021, a silver SUV in Roxbury reversed alongside a woman walking on the sidewalk. The woman was the victim’s girlfriend. The rear passenger got out and demanded she come with him. She refused. He told her, “I’m going to go punch this white girl in the face” and “You’re coming in the car, and that’s it, whether you like it or not.” She had never seen the three men before. She started screaming.

The victim came around the corner. He tossed his bags on the street and ran toward the rear passenger. Robinson, the driver, and the front passenger immediately got out of the SUV. A fight ensued. The victim fell to the ground. The rear passenger struck him over and over. Robinson kicked the victim at least three times while he was on the ground. The victim’s girlfriend testified that she “didn’t see any” weapons during the fight, though the rear passenger was “doing stabbing motions.” An eyewitness also testified that he “didn’t see any knives.” When the three men returned to the car, the rear passenger “went back to pick up the knife.”

A nearby security camera captured the incident. The video has no audio and shows no visible weapon on any participant. The victim died from “multiple sharp force injuries.” The medical examiner counted 17 sharp force injuries, some of which alone could have been fatal.

The Procedural History

Robinson was charged with murder in the first degree. At trial, he initially requested an instruction on involuntary manslaughter, then objected to any instruction on involuntary manslaughter as a joint venturer. The judge instructed the jury on both voluntary and involuntary manslaughter as a joint venturer. The jury convicted Robinson of involuntary manslaughter on a theory of wanton or reckless conduct. The rear passenger was convicted of murder in the first degree in a separate trial; his appeal is pending before the Supreme Judicial Court.

The Arguments

Robinson’s appellate argument turned on itself. He contended that “it is quite clear that the defendant was aware that dangerous weapons, the knives, were going to be used on the victim” and that “[t]here is no conceivable way that the defendant thought the incident would be just a simple assault and battery, he saw the knives, he knew it was a stabbing.” In other words, Robinson argued that the evidence compelled a finding of murder, so the manslaughter instruction was improper and his manslaughter conviction must be set aside.

The Commonwealth responded that the evidence left room for the jury to doubt whether Robinson knew about the knife.

What the Court Held

The Appeals Court affirmed. It first addressed sufficiency. Robinson conceded at oral argument that there was sufficient evidence of murder in the first degree. The court agreed: a jury could have found that Robinson saw the knife and continued to kick the victim. Where a defendant continues to act after learning of a coventurer’s weapon, the law allows an inference of the requisite intent. Because involuntary manslaughter is a lesser included offense of murder, sufficient evidence of murder means sufficient evidence of manslaughter.

The harder question was whether the trial judge properly instructed on the lesser offense. The test is “whether the evidence at trial presents a rational basis for acquitting the defendant of the crime charged and convicting him of the lesser included offense.”

The court paused to acknowledge a puzzle in Massachusetts case law: when a judge improperly instructs on a lesser included offense and the jury convicts on that offense, what is the remedy? The court catalogued four possibilities drawn from prior decisions: retrial on the greater offense only, retrial on the lesser offense only, outright acquittal, or no remedy at all. The court declined to resolve the conflict because it concluded the instruction was proper.

The Reasoning

The court began with a preliminary point. Robinson argued that the jury could find him guilty of involuntary manslaughter only if it found his coventurers also committed involuntary manslaughter. Not so. Joint venturers need not share the same mental state. Each participant may be convicted based on his own mental state, so long as it meets the minimum required for the offense of conviction.

Involuntary manslaughter based on wanton or reckless conduct requires proof that the defendant caused the victim’s death, that he intended the conduct that caused the death, and that his conduct was wanton or reckless. Wanton or reckless conduct involves a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to another. Malice is what distinguishes murder from manslaughter. To prove malice, the Commonwealth must show intent to kill, intent to cause grievous bodily harm, or commission of an act that a reasonable person would have known created a plain and strong likelihood of death.

The gap between the two standards gave the jury room to convict of manslaughter. A rational jury could doubt that Robinson intended to kill the victim and that his actions created a plain and strong likelihood of death, while still finding his actions were wanton or reckless. The video showed no weapons. Neither eyewitness saw any weapons. The evidence did not require the jury to find that Robinson was aware of his coventurer’s knife at any point during the incident.

The jury could find that Robinson intended merely to participate in a severe but weaponless beating. In that scenario, the jury could infer that Robinson knew only that his conduct created a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm would result, not a plain and strong likelihood of death. A reasonable jury could conclude that a reasonable person in Robinson’s position would think this was a fistfight, and that Robinson’s behavior was consistent with a failure to regard the consequences of his action or indifference to what those consequences might be.

The verdict was also consistent with Robinson’s own trial argument. Defense counsel argued that Robinson did not have the intent to kill, did not know the rear passenger had a knife, and backed away once the stabbing began. Counsel argued that Robinson “did not willingly engage or bring about [the rear passenger’s] efforts to kill, to murder [the victim].” A rational view of the evidence could lead the jury to conclude that Robinson “anticipated that only a simple assault and battery was to be committed by the participants and . . . he had no knowledge that it would escalate into the use of a dangerous weapon on the victim.”

Why It Matters

The decision reaffirms that joint venturers may have different mental states and thus different levels of culpability. A participant in a beating that turns deadly may be convicted of manslaughter rather than murder if the evidence permits the jury to find he did not know about a weapon and did not intend the level of harm that occurred. The case also highlights a lingering uncertainty in Massachusetts law about the proper remedy when a trial judge erroneously instructs on a lesser included offense and the jury convicts on that offense. The Appeals Court catalogued the conflicting precedents but left the question for another day.

Read the full opinion: Commonwealth v. Robinson (AC-25-P-257, October 19, 2026).