Webster v. Gray ( 2022 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 22-1002
STEVEN WEBSTER,
Petitioner, Appellant,
v.
DEAN GRAY, Superintendent,
Respondent, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. F. Dennis Saylor, IV, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Barron, Chief Judge,
Selya and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.
Dana A. Curhan for appellant.
Eva M. Badway, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Bureau,
with whom Maura Healey, Attorney General of Massachusetts, was on
brief, for appellee.
July 8, 2022
SELYA, Circuit Judge. In this habeas appeal,
petitioner-appellant Steven Webster challenges the sufficiency of
the evidence underpinning his Massachusetts convictions for first-
degree felony murder and related offenses. See Jackson v.
Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979). Although the facts, when viewed in
isolation, lend a patina of plausibility to this challenge, the
whole is sometimes greater than the sum of the parts. So it is
here: after careful consideration of the evidentiary record as a
whole, we find that the state court reasonably applied federal law
in deeming the Commonwealth's proof constitutionally adequate and,
thus, affirm the district court's denial of the habeas petition.
I
Because this appeal presents "a challenge to evidentiary
sufficiency, we rehearse the facts in the light most compatible
with the jury's verdict, consistent with record support." Leftwich
v. Maloney, 532 F.3d 20, 21 (1st Cir. 2008) (citing Jackson, 443
U.S. at 319). In conducting this tamisage, we remain mindful that
— on habeas review — "a determination of a factual issue made by
a State court" is "presumed to be correct." 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(e)(1). This presumption extends to findings made by state
appellate courts in the course of direct review. See Teti v.
Bender, 507 F.3d 50, 58 (1st Cir. 2007). We thus recite the facts
that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) found could
have supported a jury's reasoning, supplemented by other facts in
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the record consistent with that recitation. See Porter v. Coyne-
Fague, 35 F.4th 68, 71 (1st Cir. 2022); Companonio v. O'Brien, 672
F.3d 101, 104 (1st Cir. 2012).
Our tale begins on Cape Cod and, more particularly, in
the seaside village of Hyannis (an enclave of Barnstable,
Massachusetts). At approximately 1:20 pm on July 11, 2012,
Barnstable police officers responded to reports of gunshots at 30
Otis Road — a house abutting a BMW dealership. See Commonwealth
v. Webster (Webster I), 102 N.E.3d 381, 384 (Mass. 2018). When
the officers arrived, the residue of a discharged firearm lingered
in the air, and they heard screams and moaning from inside the
house. As the officers approached the house, a man, immediately
identified as Keiko Thomas, pulled back a curtain on a window and
made eye contact with one of them. The officers heard more
gunshots and a commotion inside the house before seeing Thomas and
another man (identified as Eddie Mack) climbing out of a first-
floor window at the rear of the property.
Both Thomas and Mack fled, vaulting the fence that
separated the property from the BMW dealership. A third man —
later identified as David Evans — also emerged from the house and
took flight. A pursuit ensued.
Thomas and Evans were quickly apprehended. Mack's
arrest transpired not long after: a canine officer and his dog
followed a scent trail to an address one street over from Otis
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Road, where they found Mack and detained him. While most of the
officers were in pursuit of this trio, a witness reported seeing
a fourth man, not immediately identified, running in the vicinity
of the house.
When the police entered the Otis Road dwelling, they
were confronted by a grisly scene. A man, subsequently identified
as Andrew Stanley, was face-down in a large pool of blood. His
hands and feet were bound with duct tape and zip ties.1 Stanley —
who had an apparent gunshot wound surrounded by powder burns on
his right side — was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
An autopsy revealed (in addition to the gunshot wound) evidence of
blunt-force trauma to Stanley's face, neck, torso, and extremities
together with marks consistent with the application of a stun gun.
The police recovered several items from the site at which
they apprehended Mack, including a quantity of marijuana, two cell
phones, and $14,300 in cash. Two other cell phones were discovered
nearby. Three of the recovered cell phones belonged to Stanley,
Mack, and Thomas, respectively. The police also recovered a black
backpack from the parking lot adjacent to the house through which
Thomas and Evans had fled. The backpack contained two firearms,
including a loaded .45-caliber Colt handgun, gloves, a roll of
duct tape, a stun gun, an aerosol can, zip ties, and a black face
1 Subsequent investigation disclosed that there were locked
handcuffs underneath the duct tape.
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mask. Testing showed that the face mask bore the petitioner's
DNA.
Outside the Otis Road house, the police found a spent
shell casing fired from the Colt handgun. The bullet recovered
from Stanley's body was consistent with having been fired from
that gun. Fingerprint and palm print evidence connected Mack to
the scene.
The investigation turned up other evidence that tended
to link the petitioner to the crime. The SJC, which upheld the
petitioner's convictions on direct appeal, efficiently summarized
that evidence2:
Cell phone records showed that, in the days
leading up to the killing, Mack, Evans, and
the defendant were communicating with one
another via calls and text messages. From
July 1 to July 11, the defendant telephoned or
sent text messages to numbers associated with
Evans 231 times. On July 3, the defendant
sent a text message to Evans that stated, "Got
some heat lined up," and "Bring dem rollie up,
in the arm rest." On July 7, the defendant
sent another text message to Evans stating,
"cuz if you chillen im bout, I am to go snatch
my lil heat by Norfolk and cum back." On July
9, Evans sent a text message to the defendant
asking, "So, what about mack?" The defendant
responded, "We out their what time was u tryna
head out their?" Evans replied, "We gotta see
dude at nine tho." Evans asked the defendant,
"What you trying to do?" The defendant
responded, "stressing fam." The defendant
also communicated with Mack seven times on
July 10 and July 11.
In its opinion, the SJC
2 consistently referred to the
petitioner as "the defendant."
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Between July 7 and 11, there were multiple
text messages exchanged between Mack and Evans
and forty-five communications between Mack and
Thomas. On July 8, Mack sent a text message
to Evans saying, "Gotta come down so I can
explain it better bro so we can get better
understandin feel me." The day before the
killing, Mack sent another text message to
Evans asking, "Yal good?" Evans responded,
"Yup. We out there tomorrow night cuz."
Cell site location information (CSLI) evidence
placed the defendant's and Mack's cell phones
in the Barnstable area on July 10 and 11. CSLI
evidence further indicated that both of their
cell phones were tracked being moved from
Barnstable toward Boston approximately one
hour after the homicide. At 2:21 P.M., the
defendant telephoned Mack, using a calling
feature to block the caller's identification.
A few minutes later, a text message was sent
from [Evans's phone] to Mack, which stated,
"What up bro its [me, (i.e., the defendant)]
hit me back." At 4 P.M., cell phones belonging
to the defendant and Evans were in the Boston
area.
Finally, tire impressions found in the dirt
and gravel of the backyard at the scene were
consistent with the pattern made by the tires
of a Chevrolet Impala automobile that Evans
had rented a few days prior to the murder.
The vehicle was found in Boston on July 13,
approximately one mile from the defendant's
home. The defendant's DNA was located on the
interior and exterior of the rear passenger's
side door of the vehicle.
Webster I, 102 N.E.3d at 385-86 (second alteration in original).
The authorities arrested the petitioner in February of
2013. When he was interviewed following his arrest, he dissembled:
he told the police that he had never been to Cape Cod and was not
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familiar with Barnstable. Although the petitioner acknowledged
knowing Mack, he at first denied knowing Evans. Later, though, he
admitted knowing Evans by a street name — but he claimed to have
met him only once.
In due course, a Barnstable County grand jury indicted
the petitioner and charged him with, inter alia, first-degree
murder on a theory of felony murder. See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265,
§ 1. The petitioner was tried alongside Mack — Thomas and Evans
having pleaded guilty to various charges. The jury convicted Mack
of first-degree murder as well as other offenses. At the same
time, the jury convicted the petitioner of first-degree murder on
a theory of felony murder based on a predicate of armed robbery.
The jury also convicted the petitioner of armed robbery, home
invasion, armed assault in a dwelling, and carrying a firearm
without a license.3 See Webster I, 102 N.E.3d at 384. The trial
court sentenced the petitioner to a term of life imprisonment on
the felony-murder charge and to lesser, concurrent terms of
immurement on the other charges. The petitioner appealed.
Felony murder is a doctrine that extends murder liability
3
to participants or other coventurers in certain felonies that
result in a killing. See Commonwealth v. Rakes, 82 N.E.3d 403,
416 (Mass. 2017). The armed robbery charge was the predicate for
the Commonwealth's felony-murder theory and was dismissed after
trial, contingent upon the murder conviction begin upheld. See
Webster I, 102 N.E.3d at 384 & n.1.
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The SJC affirmed the petitioner's convictions. See id.
As relevant here, the petitioner argued — as he had argued in the
trial court — that he was not present at the scene of the crime,
and he challenged the sufficiency of the evidence. Specifically,
he argued "that the Commonwealth failed to prove that he was at
the victim's home at the time the crimes were committed, or that
he was otherwise involved in participating in the joint venture."
Id. at 386.
The SJC rejected the petitioner's appeal. In its
opinion, the court observed that although the Commonwealth's case
was circumstantial, such evidence can be "sufficient to establish
guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 388 (quoting Commonwealth
v. Miranda, 934 N.E.2d 222, 233 (Mass. 2010)). The court went on
to conclude that such evidence was sufficient in the petitioner's
case. See id. The court's analysis is instructive:
Here, taken together, the evidence, including
the text messages in which the defendant said
he was procuring a firearm, the CSLI evidence
placing his cell phone in the area of the
victim's home on July 11 and tracking it as
the defendant made his way from Barnstable to
Boston just after the murder, his cell phone
silence on the morning of the murder, his
attempts to conceal his identity when he
contacted Mack using Evans's cell phone after
the murder, the fact that Evans could not have
driven his rental car back to Boston right
after the murder, the condition in which the
victim was discovered, and the cash and
marijuana recovered, as well as the DNA and
the defendant's false statements to police,
was sufficient to allow the jury to conclude
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that the defendant knowingly participated in
a joint venture to commit home invasion, armed
assault in a dwelling, armed robbery, and
carrying a firearm without a license. The
evidence permitted an inference that the
victim was killed in the course of the armed
robbery, thereby providing sufficient
evidence to find the defendant guilty of
felony-murder.
Id. (citations and footnote omitted).
The petitioner repaired to the federal district court,
seeking federal habeas review. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In his
petition, he named as the respondent the superintendent of the
correctional institution at which he was incarcerated. The
petition raised only a single contention: that the petitioner's
convictions for felony murder and related offenses did not comport
with the requirements of due process limned by the Jackson Court.
See Jackson, 443 U.S. at 317-19. The district court denied the
petition, holding that the SJC's sufficiency-of-the-evidence
determination was not unreasonable. See Webster v. Gray (Webster
II), No. 19-11788, 2021 WL 3915005, at *6 (D. Mass. Sept. 1, 2021).
The district court then granted a certificate of appealability
because — in its view — "jurists of reason could disagree as to
whether [the] petitioner demonstrated in his filings that his
conviction was based on insufficient evidence." See 28 U.S.C.
§ 2253(c)(2). This timely appeal followed.
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II
We review de novo a district court's decision to grant
or deny a habeas petition brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. See
Leftwich, 532 F.3d at 23; O'Laughlin v. O'Brien, 568 F.3d 287, 298
(1st Cir. 2009). The beacon by which we must steer is the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA),
Pub. L. No. 104-132, § 104, 110 Stat. 1214, 1218-19. Under AEDPA,
a federal court may not grant habeas relief "with respect to any
claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court
proceedings" unless the state court decision was either "contrary
to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly
established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the
United States" or "was based on an unreasonable determination of
the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court
proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)-(2). A state court's factual
findings "shall be presumed to be correct," and the petitioner
bears "the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by
clear and convincing evidence." Id. § 2254(e)(1).
A
Here, the petitioner claims that there was insufficient
evidence to support his conviction under a felony-murder theory as
well as his convictions for related offenses. He focuses his
briefing on his felony-murder conviction and treats the other
counts of conviction as more or less an afterthought, alluding to
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them in only a desultory fashion. Given the lack of development,
we could deem the challenge to those counts as waived. See United
States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990). But inasmuch
as the evidence is largely overlapping to the point that all the
convictions rise or fall with the armed-robbery and felony-murder
convictions, we consider them.
The constitutional benchmark by which sufficiency-of-
the-evidence claims are analyzed is clearly established, see
Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319, and habeas review of such claims is
typically conducted under section 2254(d)(1), see O'Laughlin, 568
F.3d at 298 & n.14.4 The petitioner mounts his challenge within
that framework, arguing that the SJC's decision unreasonably
applied the Jackson standard.
Section 2254(d)(1) contains two distinct avenues for
relief: the "contrary to" clause and the "unreasonable
application" clause. The "contrary to" clause may warrant relief
"if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that
reached by th[e Supreme] Court on a question of law or if the state
court decides a case differently than th[e Supreme] Court has on
4It is possible to imagine circumstances in which a
sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim could be premised "on an
unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence
presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2);
see O'Laughlin, 568 F.3d at 298 n.14. Here, however, the
petitioner does not argue that any of the facts were unreasonably
determined; instead, he argues that — taken in the ensemble — the
facts were legally insufficient to ground his convictions.
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a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Williams v. Taylor,
529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000). The petitioner has identified no
Supreme Court case with "materially indistinguishable facts" that
is "contrary to" the SJC's decision. Accordingly, we leave the
"contrary to" clause to one side and focus the lens of our inquiry
on the "unreasonable application" clause.
The "unreasonable application" clause opens the door for
relief "if the state court identifies the correct governing legal
principle from th[e Supreme] Court's decisions but unreasonably
applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id.
at 413. Section 2254(d)(1)'s reference to "clearly established
Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court" means "the
holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of th[e Supreme] Court's
decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision."
Id. at 412. Those holdings must be reasonably applied but need
not be extended. See White v. Woodall, 572 U.S. 415, 426-27
(2014).
The bottom line is that where, as here, "the last state
court to decide a prisoner's federal claim explains its decision
on the merits in a reasoned opinion," a federal habeas court must
examine the "specific reasons given by the state court and defer[]
to those reasons if they are reasonable." Wilson v. Sellers, 138
S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018). As we have said, "[r]easonableness is
a concept, not a constant." McCambridge v. Hall, 303 F.3d 24, 36
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(1st Cir. 2002) (en banc) (quoting United States v. Ocasio, 914
F.2d 330, 336 (1st Cir. 1990)). Helpfully, though, the Court has
erected several guideposts in the section 2254(d)(1) context. To
warrant relief under the "unreasonable application" clause, the
state court's application of Supreme Court precedent "must be
objectively unreasonable, not merely wrong; even clear error will
not suffice." White, 572 U.S. at 419 (internal quotation marks
omitted) (quoting Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75-76 (2003)).
Moreover, the "unreasonable application" clause affords relief
"if, and only if, it is so obvious that a clearly established rule
applies to a given set of facts that there could be no 'fairminded
disagreement' on the question." Id. at 427 (quoting Harrington v.
Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011)). And in all events, the
reasonableness of a state court's application of a rule laid down
by the Supreme Court is calibrated to the specificity of the rule:
"[t]the more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in
reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations." Yarborough v.
Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004).
Jackson provides the substantive rule of decision here.
That rule requires that — to comport with the constitutional right
to due process — a conviction must be supported by sufficient
evidence. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 314-24. As the Supreme Court has
phrased it, "no person shall be made to suffer the onus of a
criminal conviction except upon sufficient proof — defined as
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evidence necessary to convince a trier of fact beyond a reasonable
doubt of the existence of every element of the offense." Id. at
316. This rule is general in nature and directs an inquiring court
to ask a simple question: "whether, after viewing the evidence in
the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of
fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond
a reasonable doubt." Id. at 319 (emphasis in original).
Of course, many states apply their own standards,
developed in their case law, rather than directly applying Supreme
Court precedent. Such subtle differences, though, do not perforce
mean that the state court failed to decide the federal
constitutional question on the merits. Rather, "a state-court
adjudication of an issue framed in terms of state law may receive
section 2254(d)(1) deference so long as the state standard is at
least as protective of the defendant's rights as its federal
counterpart." Leftwich, 532 F.3d at 23-24. That is the situation
here: although the SJC did not cite Jackson when rejecting the
petitioner's appeal, the Massachusetts case law on which it relied
— primarily its own decision in Commonwealth v. Latimore, 393
N.E.2d 370 (Mass. 1979) — incorporated Jackson's federal
constitutional standard. See id. at 374-75. Thus, "we can
securely reason that in scouring the record for Latimore error and
finding none, the SJC effectively answered the federal
constitutional question." Leftwich, 532 F.3d at 24.
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B
This brings us to the SJC's decision. The SJC evaluated
whether there was sufficient evidence to support the conclusion
that the petitioner was a co-venturer in the armed robbery that
led to the homicide and the other charged offenses. See Webster
I, 102 N.E.3d at 386. The petitioner does not dispute that, in
order "[t]o warrant a conviction of felony-murder as a joint
venturer with armed robbery as the predicate felony, the
Commonwealth had to prove that 'the defendant was a joint venturer
in an armed robbery and that [the victim's] death occurred in the
commission . . . of that [armed] robbery.'" Commonwealth v.
Rakes, 82 N.E.3d 403, 416 (Mass. 2017) (internal quotation marks
omitted) (last alteration in original) (quoting Commonwealth v.
Williams, 60 N.E.3d 335, 343-44 (Mass. 2016)). Nor does the
petitioner dispute that — to find him guilty of armed robbery —
the Commonwealth had to prove that he "was part of a venture in
which at least one of the coventurers was armed with a dangerous
weapon," used violence against the victim, "and took the victim['s]
property with the intent to steal it." Id.The petitioner does not suggest either that the SJC
garbled these legal principles or that any of the SJC's subsidiary
findings of fact were unreasonable. Instead, he suggests that the
facts — as found by the SJC — simply do not add up to enough to
support his convictions. He argues that the evidence was
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insufficient to prove that he was "present at the scene of the
crime," as required under one of two tests for Massachusetts joint
venture law.5 See Commonwealth v. Ortiz, 679 N.E.2d 1007, 1009
(Mass. 1997). He further argues that the evidence was insufficient
to prove that he knowingly participated in the commission of the
crime. We turn next to an appraisal of these arguments.
C
The SJC reasonably determined that there is evidence
from which a rational jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt
that the petitioner was present at the scene during the commission
of the crime. To begin, physical evidence suggested the
petitioner's involvement. A mask with the petitioner's DNA was
found in a backpack near the scene. The same backpack contained
the murder weapon and other items of the type used to bind the
5Here, the SJC based its reasoning on the petitioner having
been present at the scene and having participated in the crimes.
See Webster I, 102 N.E.3d at 386-88. Withal, the SJC has also
made clear that ordinarily it is enough for joint venture liability
that a defendant "aids in the commission of a felony, or is an
accessory thereto before the fact by counselling, hiring or
otherwise procuring such felony to be committed," Ortiz, 679 N.E.2d
at 1009 (quoting Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 274, § 2), and that a jury
instruction on "the defendant's presence at the scene of a crime
in a prosecution proceeding on a joint participation theory" is
required "only to the extent that the factor has legal
significance," id. at 1010-11; see Commonwealth v. Benitez, 985
N.E.2d 102, 106 & n.6 (2013) (upholding a felony-murder conviction
without requiring physical presence when defendant served as
lookout for an armed robbery). Because there is sufficient
evidence to support reasonable inferences both of the petitioner's
presence and his involvement, we need not delve into this
additional theory of guilt.
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victim. Tire impressions consistent with the all-weather tires on
the Chevrolet Impala that Evans had rented were found at 30 Otis
Road; that car was discovered near the petitioner's home in Boston
on July 13; and an inspection disclosed the petitioner's DNA on
and inside the car.
Next, a witness's statement weighed in favor of a finding
that the petitioner was present at the scene. Although only Mack,
Evans, and Thomas were apprehended at or near the scene, a witness
described a fourth (unidentified) suspect who succeeded in
fleeing.
Cell site location information (CSLI) and cell phone
communication records tightened the inference of the petitioner's
presence at the scene of the crime during the relevant time frame.
The petitioner texted extensively with Evans and Mack over the
days leading up to the killing. On the morning of July 11, the
petitioner did not text the others, but Mack and Evans texted
extensively until 12:10 pm, after which there was no cell phone
traffic among the four men (Webster, Mack, Evans, and Thomas).
The homicide and the attendant robbery occurred at
approximately 1:20 pm. At 2:21 pm — after the other three men had
been apprehended — the petitioner called Mack's phone "using a
calling feature to block the caller's identification." Webster I,
102 N.E.3d at 385. A few minutes later, he texted Mack from Evans'
phone identifying himself and requesting that Mack respond. CSLI
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placed the petitioner's phone in the Barnstable area on July 11
and showed both his phone and Evans's phone moving from Barnstable
to Boston in the hours immediately after the killing. The SJC
reasonably concluded that the CSLI and cell phone communication
records, along with the physical evidence, permitted plausible
inferences to the effect that "the four coventurers were together
at the victim's home at the time of the killing," id. at 387, and
that "the [petitioner] and Evans had traveled together to the crime
and, after the killing, the [petitioner] fled back to Boston in
Evans's vehicle" with Evans's phone in his possession, id.
There was more. When the petitioner was arrested in
February of 2013, he told the police that he had never been to
Cape Cod, was not familiar with Barnstable, and did not know Evans.
All of these statements were demonstrably false. A rational jury
reasonably could interpret these apocryphal statements as evidence
of consciousness of guilt — evidence that supported a guilty
verdict alongside other evidence. See id. at 387-88; see also
Commonwealth v. Jones, 77 N.E.3d 278, 289 (Mass. 2017).
That gets the grease from the goose. Drawing on this
evidentiary array, the SJC reasonably held that a rational jury
could form plausible inferences and find that the petitioner was
plotting with the other three men leading up to the killing and
was in attendance at 30 Otis Road during the commission of the
robbery. The roughly two-hour cessation of communications among
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the four men supports an inference that they were all together
and, thus, had no need for electronic communication during that
interlude. What is more, the petitioner's DNA on the mask, the
presence of the mask in the backpack along with the murder weapon,
the tire impressions at the scene, the CSLI showing the
petitioner's cell phone and Evans's cell phone moving from
Barnstable to Boston, the presence of the petitioner's DNA on and
inside the car, the discovery of the car near the petitioner's
home in Boston,6 and the petitioner's prevarication to the police
combine to provide strong support for a finding that the petitioner
was a participant in the venture. Given that picture, we cannot
say that the SJC's decision is objectively unreasonable.
The petitioner resists this conclusion. He invites us
to focus on each brush stroke in isolation, and he submits that no
brush stroke, by itself, establishes his guilt. We decline this
invitation: our task is to focus on the totality of the evidence
— and here, the brush strokes collectively, paint a compelling
picture of the petitioner's complicity in the criminal venture.
6The distance between the petitioner's home and the spot
where the car was recovered appears to have been approximately 1.6
miles. The petitioner does not argue that the SJC erred by
including this datum in the mix of facts that it assessed and — in
any event — we do not believe that the inclusion of this fact
changes the general thrust of the inferences that can reasonably
be drawn.
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Given that picture, we cannot say that the SJC's decision is
objectively unreasonable.
To be sure, the petitioner proffers a number of
qualifications, explanations, and purported inconsistencies that
might serve to undermine the force of individual pieces of
evidence. For instance, he contends that CSLI "do[es] not place
his phone in the [cell-tower] sector in which the house was
located, meaning that the phone may have been in the
Barnstable/Hyannis area but was not at the scene of the crime at
the time the crimes were committed." This contention, though,
does not get him very far because the house is on the edge of the
cell-tower sector that registered his phone and witnesses for both
sides acknowledged that CSLI is not absolutely precise. A jury
would be well within the bounds of reason to conclude that the
CSLI for the petitioner's phone supported an inference that he was
at 30 Otis Road at the time of the killing.
The petitioner also argues that phone records show
"simultaneous[]" and "overlapping" post-murder communications from
cell phones that a jury could infer were his and Evans's, with the
implication that it is impossible that he could have been using
both phones while driving. As far as we can tell, the petitioner
did not make this argument either in the trial court or to the
SJC. At any rate, a careful examination of the records shows that
they are capable of supporting various inferences. For instance,
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a jury might reasonably infer that the allegedly "overlapping"
communications were not "simultaneous[]" but, rather, in quick
succession. Or a jury might reasonably infer that, even if the
communications were "simultaneous[]," the petitioner was
nevertheless driving in the Chevrolet Impala to Boston. The CSLI
related to these calls shows the phones, reasonably attributable
to the petitioner and Evans respectively, moving up Route 3 to
Boston in tandem.
Other qualifications and explanations — that Mack or
Evans could have borrowed the mask without his knowing the
borrower's intentions, that the tire impressions found at the scene
were consistent with a popular type of all-weather tire, and so on
— are even less compelling and recede into insignificance when
considered against the bigger picture. And as we have said, "[t]he
sum of an evidentiary presentation may well be greater than its
constituent parts." United States v. Ortiz, 966 F.2d 707, 711
(1st Cir. 1992) (quoting Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171,
179-80 (1987)). This is such a case, and the petitioner's
qualifications and explanations, though imaginatively phrased,
cannot dispel the probative force of the whole. Although any one
piece of the Commonwealth's evidentiary array — viewed alone —
might very well be written off as coincidental, insisting that the
SJC write off as coincidental the entire body of evidence that the
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Commonwealth had amassed would entail more than the Jackson
standard requires.
Against the backdrop of this evidence, the petitioner's
assertion that "[n]o one actually saw [him] in or near the scene
of the killing" does not take him very far. Eye-witness testimony
that a defendant was present at the scene of a crime is not
constitutionally required: circumstantial evidence alone may be
sufficient to convict, see Miranda, 934 N.E.2d at 233; Cramer v.
Commonwealth, 642 N.E.2d 1039, 1042 (Mass. 1994); see also Gomes
v. Silva, 958 F.3d 12, 20 (1st Cir. 2020), and circumstantial
evidence suffices here to ground a reasonable inference of the
petitioner's presence at the scene.
In an effort to change the trajectory of the debate, the
petitioner suggests that it would have been implausible for him to
have driven the Chevrolet Impala from the scene undetected after
police arrived and established a perimeter. This effort fails.
The time line is not clear, and with a multitude of officers in
hot pursuit of fleeing suspects, it is not unreasonable to infer
that the car could have been driven away without being remarked.
And regardless of whether the petitioner left the scene before or
after the police arrived, a rational jury could conclude that the
petitioner was there at some point during the course of the
robbery.
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The petitioner has a fallback position. He contends
that there is insufficient evidence to show that he was involved
in the armed robbery and related offenses that led to Stanley's
murder. The record refutes this contention.
As we already have noted, the petitioner's cell phone
records support an inference that he was in communication with
Evans and Mack in planning the robbery. He called or messaged
Evans a total of 231 times between July 1 and July 11 and
communicated with Mack seven times between July 10 and July 11.
Messages sent and received during that interval suggested that the
men were planning the robbery. In one revelatory exchange, for
example, the petitioner remonstrated that he was "stressing" over
what a jury could conclude was the plan. Texts on July 3 and July
7 from the petitioner to Evans discussed obtaining "heat" — a
common euphemism for a firearm. See Webster I, 102 N.E.3d at 385-
86. A rational jury reasonably could conclude from the messages
that the petitioner was hip-deep in planning the robbery and
related offenses, had obtained a weapon, and was aware of the
potential for violence.
We summarize succinctly. In gauging a sufficiency-of-
the-evidence claim, an inquiring court views the facts as a whole,
not in splendid isolation. See United States v. Iwuala, 789 F.3d
1, 9 (1st Cir. 2015); United States v. Martin, 228 F.3d 1, 10 (1st
Cir. 2000). Considering the totality of the record evidence in
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this case, it was objectively reasonable for the SJC to conclude
that the Commonwealth had presented sufficient evidence to show,
beyond a reasonable doubt, that the petitioner had been a knowing
participant in an armed robbery and that Stanley had been killed
in the course of that robbery. In other words, the evidence
supports a reasonable inference that the petitioner was a co-
venturer who participated in the armed robbery and related offenses
that led to Stanley's demise.
We need go no further. We conclude, "after viewing the
evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution," that a
"rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of
the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319.
The SJC's determination that the evidence was sufficient to support
the petitioner's convictions was, therefore, a reasonable
application of settled law. The Jackson standard was reasonably
applied, and the district court did not err in denying the
petitioner's application for habeas relief.
III
For the reasons elucidated above, the judgment of the
district court is
Affirmed.
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