Commonwelth v. Robideau (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-047-13)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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‑11053 COMMONWEALTH vs. JOSEPH ROBIDEAU. Bristol. November 9, 2012. ‑ March 18, 2013. Present: Ireland, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, & Gants, JJ. Homicide. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Postconviction relief, New trial, Assistance of counsel, Instructions to jury, Presumptions and burden of proof. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court on February 5, 1964. A motion for new trial, filed on May 5, 2009, was heard by D. Lloyd Macdonald, J. Aziz Safar for the defendant. Tara L. Blackman, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. CORDY, J. On July 2, 1964, the defendant was convicted by a jury of one count of murder in the first degree, G. L. c. 265, § 1; and two counts of armed robbery, G. L. c. 265, § 17, for his role in the robbery of a Fall River bar that resulted in the shooting death of its owner, Jean Thibeault. On his conviction of murder in the first degree, the jury recommended that the death penalty, then in effect, not be imposed, and the defendant was sentenced to life in prison. He also received lesser concurrent sentences on his armed robbery convictions.[1] He did not appeal. Nearly forty-five years later, the defendant filed a motion for new trial in the Superior Court, pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 30 (b), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001), collaterally attacking his conviction. Following an evidentiary hearing, a judge denied the defendant’s amended motion[2] without prejudice and granted the defendant leave to renew that motion subject to the outcome of his codefendant, John F. Petetabella’s, appeal from the denial of a similar motion for new trial. See Commonwealth v. Petetabella, 459 Mass. 177 (2011) (Petetabella). Rather than awaiting the outcome of that case, the defendant appealed the denial of his motion, and the case was docketed in this court as a direct entry of an appeal from a conviction of murder in the first degree. We subsequently affirmed the denial of Petetabella’s motion for new trial. Id. at 193.[3] The defendant’s arguments track those made in Petetabella, supra. His primary contention is that his trial counsel was ineffective for not pursuing a direct appeal and, consequently, that this court should treat the claims of error he now raises as if raised on direct appeal, and afford them the more […]