Commonwealth v. Woollam (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-196-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-10709 COMMONWEALTH vs. DEREK WOOLLAM. Bristol. October 6, 2017. – December 13, 2017. Present: Gants, C.J., Gaziano, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ. Homicide. Constitutional Law, Grand jury, Assistance of counsel, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement. Due Process of Law, Grand jury proceedings, Assistance of counsel. Grand Jury. Cellular Telephone. Evidence, Grand jury proceedings, Authentication, State of mind, Motive, Consciousness of guilt, Bias of government witness, Prior misconduct, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement. Witness, Bias. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Grand jury proceedings, Assistance of counsel, Conduct of prosecutor, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on March 29, 2007, and April 17, 2008. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Robert J. Kane, J.; the cases were tried before Barbara A. Dortch-Okara, J.; and a motion for a new trial, filed on May 29, 2013, was heard by Renee P. Dupuis, J. David H. Mirsky (Joanne Petito also present) for the defendant. Yul-mi Cho, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. BUDD, J. In February, 2009, a jury convicted the defendant, Derek Woollam, of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation in connection with the shooting death of John Oliveira in July, 2006.[1] In this appeal, the defendant asserts error in the unauthorized presence of police officers in the grand jury room during the presentation of witness testimony in support of the indictments against him, as well as the admission of certain evidence at trial due to ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. He also seeks relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E. After full consideration of the record and the defendant’s arguments, we affirm his convictions and the denial of his motion for a new trial, and we decline to grant extraordinary relief pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E. Background. We summarize the evidence that the jury could have found, reserving certain details for discussion of specific issues. The drug operation. In 2006, John Oliveira ran a large-scale drug operation out of a studio apartment in a duplex in Swansea. At the time of his death, he had two “employees”: the defendant, who delivered marijuana to customers and collected the money; and Dylan Hodgate, who broke down the larger quantities of marijuana and […]