Court upholds sentence for son of Boston police officer and Union head convicted of plotting Columbine-style massacre
Court upholds sentence for son of Boston police officer convicted of plotting Columbine-style massacre By adamg – 10/27/10 – 11:27 am http://www.universalhub.com/2010/court-upholds-sentence-son-boston-police-officer-c The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that Joseph Nee was fairly convicted on a charge he conspired with other students at Marshfield High School to massacre students and teachers they didn’t like. Nee was convicted in 2008 and served nine months in state prison. In his appeal, Nee, son of Boston patrolmens union President Thomas Nee, argued the verdict should be overturned because he had renounced his part in the plot by telling a Marshfield police officer about it before it could be carried out. In a unanimous ruling, the state’s highest court said that even if it agreed Nee had a right to argue “renunciation” – something Massachusetts law does not seem to allow – it still would have found him guilty: For the defendant to be entitled to the affirmative defense of renunciation, he must first have acknowledged that he conspired to commit a crime. This the defendant did not do. At the meeting at the Marshfield police station the defendant did not inform the police of his own participation in the conspiracy to “shoot up” the school. Nor is there evidence that he informed [the other students in the plot], or anyone else that he was abandoning the conspiracy. Rather, when the defendant spoke to the police about the plan, he placed exclusive blame on Kerns. He cannot be found to have “renounced” an enterprise in which he denied participation. For the complete rulinghttp://www.universalhub.com/2010/commonwealth-vs-joseph-nee COMMONWEALTH vs. Joseph NEEBy adamg – 10/27/10 – 11:06 amNOTICE: The slip opinions and orders posted on this Web site are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. This preliminary material will be removed from the Web site once the advance sheets of the Official Reports are published. 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 COMMONWEALTH vs. Joseph NEE. SJC-10634. September 7, 2010. – October 27, 2010. Conspiracy. Evidence, Conspiracy. INDICTMENT found and returned in the Superior Court Department on October 22, 2004. The case was heard by Charles M. Grabau, J. The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for direct appellate review. Frances L. Robinson (Thomas Drechsler with her) for the defendant. Karen H. O’Sullivan, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Present: Marshall, C.J., Ireland, Spina, Cowin, Cordy, Botsford, & Gants, JJ. MARSHALL, C.J. In February, 2008, after a jury-waived trial in the Superior Court, the defendant was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with a Columbine-style plot [FN1] to kill students and school personnel at a public high school in the Commonwealth. [FN2] See G.L. c. 274, § 7. He was sentenced to two and one-half years in a house of correction, nine months to be served with the balance suspended, and two years of probation commencing on his release. The defendant appealed, and we granted his application for direct appellate review. [FN3] The defendant argues that we must reverse the conviction because (1) the evidence at trial was insufficient to establish that he had the requisite intent to commit conspiracy; (2) the judge erred in refusing to recognize and apply the renunciation defense; [FN4] and (3) refusing to apply the renunciation defense in this case would violate the defendant’s due process rights where it was not clear whether the defense was available when the defendant committed the acts for which he was convicted. We affirm. 1. Facts. We summarize the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, considering the evidence at the close of the Commonwealth’s case. See Commonwealth v. Kelley, 370 Mass. 147, 150 (1976). [FN5] On September 16, 2004, the defendant, Daniel Farley, and Joseph Sullivan, then all students at Marshfield High School (school), attended a meeting with five Marshfield police officers at the Marshfield police station. The meeting had been arranged at the defendant’s request by Officer Helen Gray, a Marshfield police officer assigned to duty as the school’s “resource officer.” [FN6] Over the course of a few hours the defendant and his companions informed the police officers that since the previous winter another student, Tobin Kerns, had developed an elaborate plot to “blow up the school.” The defendant, in particular, described the plot in detail. None of the three friends indicated that they were involved in the plot, or implicated each other in the plot. Marshfield police officers subsequently arrested Kerns and obtained a warrant to search his home, where they discovered, among other things, a list of supplies and weaponry in a notebook, and evidence of computer searches pertaining to weapons, pipe bombs, and other explosives. See Commonwealth v. Kerns, 449 Mass. 641, 646 (2007). The defendant did not testify at trial. Farley and Sullivan testified pursuant to grants of immunity. [FN7] They testified that during the winter of 2003 and spring of 2004, they would “hang out” with Kerns and the defendant “[a]lmost every day.” In the winter of 2003, the defendant told Farley of a plan to “shoot up” the school and asked whether Farley was interested in joining him. On a subsequent occasion when Kerns was also present, the defendant asked Kerns whether Kerns would be interested in joining the defendant in “shooting up the school.” Kerns and the defendant together discussed the plan with Sullivan and asked him whether he would be interested in participating. The plan that Kerns and the defendant proposed involved a multifaceted assault on the school to take place the following school year on or near the anniversary of the murders at Columbine High School. Kerns and the defendant, along with Farley, Sullivan, and perhaps one other student, were to shoot and kill targeted students, teachers, and other staff at the school using an assortment of automatic and semiautomatic weapons.