Commonwealth v. Bell (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-180-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-11444 COMMONWEALTH vs. LASTARANDRE BELL. Hampden. December 5, 2014. – November 9, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ. Homicide. Evidence, Admissions and confessions, Inflammatory evidence, Intoxication, Photograph, Relevancy and materiality, Voluntariness of statement. Constitutional Law, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement, Waiver of constitutional rights. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Motion to suppress, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement, Waiver, Argument by counsel, Instructions to jury. Waiver. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on February 13, 2007. Following review by this court, 460 Mass. 294 (2011), a pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by John S. Ferrara, J., and the case was retried before him on an indictment charging murder in the first degree. Leslie W. O’Brien for the defendant. Katherine E. McMahon, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. DUFFLY, J. The defendant was indicted on charges of murder in the first degree, armed home invasion, arson of a dwelling house, and violations of an abuse prevention order in the January 29, 2007 death of Julie Ann Nieves,[1] who died as a result of complications arising from second and third degree burns over ninety per cent of her body that she sustained on January 7, 2007. In April, 2008, a Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of murder in the first degree on a theory of felony-murder,[2] armed home invasion, arson, and violations of an abuse prevention order. The defendant’s appeal from the denial of his motion for a new trial was consolidated with his direct appeal. Because the trial judge failed to instruct the jury on second-degree felony-murder with arson as the predicate felony, and because we concluded that the arson conviction merged with the murder conviction, we vacated the murder conviction and remanded the matter to the Superior Court either for entry of a verdict of guilty of felony-murder in the second degree, or for a new trial. See Commonwealth v. Bell, 460 Mass. 294, 295 (2011). We affirmed the other convictions. Id. At his second trial in December, 2012, before a different judge, a Superior Court jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree on theories of premeditation, extreme atrocity or cruelty, and felony-murder. The defendant’s appeal from that conviction is now before […]