NOTICE: Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule 23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass. App. Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28, as amended by 73 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties and, therefore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire court and, therefore, represent only the views of the panel that decided the case. A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25, 2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 258, 260 n.4 (2008).
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
APPEALS COURT
25-P-143
COMMONWEALTH
vs.
MESSIAH LEGGETT.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0
After a jury trial the defendant was found guilty of
involuntary manslaughter, G. L. c. 265, § 13, and possession of
a firearm without a license, G. L. c. 269, § 10 (a), in the
shooting death of Nalijah Andrade, a high school senior with
whom the defendant and his friends had been partying in a hotel
room. The victim and the defendant had been "play fighting"
with a "ghost gun" in a corner of the room when the gun
discharged, sending a fatal bullet through the victim's head.
We affirm.
Background. The jury could have found that four young men
-- the defendant and his friend Kenny Jnley, along with two of
Jnley's friends -- came to Boston one night to gather, drink, hang out, and consume marijuana in two hotel rooms they had
rented. Jnley and his friends went to the hotel just before
7 P.M; the defendant arrived separately. The four spent time in
the room "[c]hilling, talking, smoking," playing with a gun, and
making video recordings.
A "selfie" video recording taken around 9:30 P.M. depicted
Jnley dancing, playing with a black and gray gun, which he
pointed both at the recording device and at his own neck,
displaying a paper cup full of a yellow-brown liquid, and
singing. (The version of the video recording played for the
jury was muted on the order of the judge to prevent possible
prejudice to the defendant. The other "selfie" video recording
discussed infra was also muted.) In the video recording the
defendant approaches from behind Jnley and joins in the dancing
and singing. From his position, the defendant had an
unobstructed view of the gun. While the defendant was in the
frame, standing behind Jnley, Jnley removed a magazine from the
handle of the gun and pointed the top of the magazine at the
camera, revealing a gold-colored bullet inside. The defendant's
face was visible behind Jnley while Jnley, with the gun lifted
to shoulder height, replaced the magazine in the gun's handle.
A group of four young women, including the victim, later
joined the young men, and the eight continued drinking, smoking
2 marijuana, and playing with the gun. The victim was among the
people playing with the gun. Eventually, the defendant, the
victim, and three other people ended up in one of the two hotel
rooms. The defendant and the victim were in a corner of the
room outside the bathroom, "play fighting" with their hands and
talking. The mood in the room was "[n]ormal." There was no
"rustling" or "grappling" noise from the corner where the
defendant and victim were alone together.
A witness heard a gunshot from the corner. The witness saw
the victim on the floor with the defendant looking at her
saying, "What did I do? What did I do? Oh, my God. What did I
do?" According to the defendant, before the victim was shot,
she was playing with the gun again. He and Jnley told her to
"chill." The victim said, "I know you guys wouldn't really like
wouldn't shoot it or stuff like that." When asked by
investigating officers, "Who had the gun when she was shot," the
defendant responded, "Me, but like, well, she did first but then
me." Asked what happened to the gun after the shooting, the
defendant responded, "I think I had it or I picked it up," and
he "put it in the bathroom."
The gun was recovered. It was a nine millimeter Polymer80
semiautomatic pistol with no serial number, a "ghost gun"
modeled after a Glock. Test-firing confirmed that it was a
3 working firearm that could fire a round fed from the magazine
found near the victim. It had a trigger safety, a small tab
that had to be depressed at the same time the trigger was pulled
to allow the firearm to fire. The firearm did not have a
"hairpin trigger," one that required only one to two pounds of
pressure to fire.
Discussion. 1. Sufficiency of the evidence. We review
the defendant's insufficiency claims, considering the evidence
introduced at trial in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth, to determine whether any rational trier of fact
could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a
reasonable doubt, Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-
678 (1979), bearing in mind that guilt may be established by
circumstantial evidence "and that the inferences a jury may draw
from the evidence 'need only be reasonable and possible and need
not be necessary or inescapable.'" Commonwealth v. Linton, 456
Mass. 534, 544 (2010), quoting Commonwealth v. Lao, 443 Mass.
770, 779 (2005), S.C., 450 Mass. 215 (2007). In so doing, we
are mindful that, "[w]ith few exceptions, the task of assessing
the cogency of evidence and resolving conflicting testimony is
the exclusive province of the fact finder." Commonwealth v.
Tanner, 66 Mass. App. Ct. 432, 437 (2006).
4 a. Involuntary manslaughter: "wanton and reckless"
conduct. "Involuntary manslaughter arises where death is caused
by wanton or reckless conduct -- that is, 'intentional conduct
that create[s] a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm
will result to another person.'" Commonwealth v. Njuguna, 495
Mass. 770, 781 (2025), quoting Commonwealth v. O'Brien, 494
Mass. 288, 297 (2024). Proof of involuntary manslaughter does
not require that the defendant "inten[d] to cause the specific
harm," but only "inten[d] to engage in the wanton or reckless
conduct itself." Njuguna, supra. The Commonwealth can prove
intent "either subjectively, based on the defendant's specific
knowledge, or objectively, based on what a reasonable person
should have known in the circumstances." Id. "[T]he relevant
inquiry is whether a defendant knew of facts that would cause a
reasonable person to know of the relevant danger, or whether the
defendant in fact knew of the danger." Commonwealth v. Horne,
466 Mass. 440, 444 (2013).
The defendant stresses the absence of evidence conclusively
demonstrating that he put the gun to the victim's head, knowing
or suspecting it to be loaded, and pulled the trigger. Instead,
he emphasizes evidence from which the jury could have concluded
that the victim herself held the gun and accidentally shot
herself while he attempted to intervene and remove the gun for
5 her safety. But in analyzing the sufficiency of the evidence,
we must assess it in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth, rather than to the defendant. See Latimore, 378
Mass. at 677. Furthermore, the defendant asserted this accident
theory at trial, and the judge appropriately and correctly
instructed that "[t]he Commonwealth ha[d] the burden of proof to
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the death of [the victim]
was not an accident." She further explained that an accident
"is defined as an unexpected happening that occurs without
intention or design on the defendant's part," a "sudden,
unexpected event that takes place without the defendant's
intending it." Finally, she instructed that an "accident is an
unintentional event occurring through inadvertence or mistake or
negligence," and that, if the Commonwealth failed to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt "that what occurred was not an
accident, then you must find the defendant not guilty." See
Commonwealth v. Lowe, 391 Mass. 97, 109-110 (1984). "We presume
that a jury follow all instructions given to it." Commonwealth
v. Watkins, 425 Mass. 830, 840 (1997). In delivering a verdict
of guilty, the jury necessarily considered and rejected the
accident theory.
A "person who handles a dangerous weapon in such a manner
as to make the killing or physical injury of another a natural
6 and probable result of such conduct can be found guilty of
involuntary manslaughter, although he did not contemplate such a
result." Commonwealth v. Bouvier, 316 Mass. 489, 494 (1944).
See Commonwealth v. Depradine, 42 Mass. App. Ct. 401, 407
(1997), quoting Commonwealth v. Twitchell, 416 Mass. 114, 122
(1993) ("It is of no consequence that the defendant may have
meant no harm to the victim. 'Wanton or reckless conduct does
not involve a wilful intention to cause the resulting harm'").
The evidence established that the defendant and the victim
were alone together in a corner with a loaded firearm and were
"play fighting." Based on the "selfie" video recording from
earlier in the evening, the jury could have inferred that the
defendant either was aware or should have been aware that the
gun could be loaded. The defendant admitted that he was holding
the gun when the victim was shot. The firearms expert's
testimony allowed the jury to conclude that the weapon's firing
was not accidental. The jury were also entitled to consider the
defendant's cries of "What did I do?" after the shooting when
considering his role.
The defendant makes much of the complex and contradictory
evidence presented to the jury: that the defendant, in his
statement to investigators, said that the victim had been
"pointing [the firearm] in the air and like joking and stuff"
7 before the shot was fired, that the defendant had no blood on
his hands, while the victim did; that the scientific evidence
about the bullet's downward trajectory and the human hair in the
firearm's slide "equally supported the proposition" that the
discharge of the weapon was an accident, or that the victim
herself fired the weapon; and that the victim plausibly could
have believed that the gun was not loaded. A jury could have
heard this evidence and reached a different verdict, but this
jury did not. See Commonwealth v. Miranda, 458 Mass. 100, 113
(2010)("To the extent that conflicting inferences may be drawn
from the evidence, it is for the jury to decide which version to
credit"); Lao, 443 Mass. at 779 ("If, from the evidence,
conflicting inferences are possible, it is for the jury to
determine where the truth lies, for the weight and credibility
of the evidence is wholly within their province").
We are also unpersuaded by the defendant's argument that,
if he was attempting to take a loaded gun from the victim, the
conviction cannot stand. First, the jury were not required to
interpret the evidence this way, and we view the evidence in the
light most favorable to the Commonwealth. See Lao, 443 Mass. at
779. Second, when it comes to intent, an involuntary
manslaughter conviction asks only whether "wanton [or] reckless
conduct cause[d] death." O'Brien, 494 Mass. at 297, quoting
8 Commonwealth v. Simpson, 434 Mass. 570, 590 (2001). It is
settled law that "[a] man may be reckless within the meaning of
the law although he himself thought he was careful."
Commonwealth v. Welansky, 316 Mass. 383, 399 (1944). When the
defendant and victim were "play fighting" and had a loaded gun
near the victim's head, the standard has been met. See Bouvier,
316 Mass. at 494; Commonwealth v. Griffin, 8 Mass. App. Ct. 276,
279 (1979) (affirming involuntary manslaughter conviction of
defendant intending to "scare the victim" or "play a foolhardy
game" by pointing firearm at victim's head and pulling trigger).
We stress that this conclusion in no way touches on the
defendant's motivation in the moment. Whether the defendant
deliberately held the loaded firearm to the victim's head, as
the Commonwealth asserted in its opening statement, or grappled
with the victim in a well-intentioned effort to wrest the
firearm from her, the evidence was sufficient, reviewed under
the Latimore standard, to support the conviction.
b. Possession of the firearm. The defendant maintains
that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he possessed
the firearm. We again employ the Latimore standard, 378 Mass.
at 677-678, and we again disagree.
To convict the defendant of unlawful possession of a
firearm, the Commonwealth was required to prove that the
9 defendant, (1) possessed a firearm that (2) met the legal
definition of a firearm, (3) knowing that he possessed or had
control of a firearm, and (4) did not have a license to carry
firearms. G. L. c. 269, § 10 (a); Commonwealth v. Guardado, 491
Mass. 666, 690, S.C., 493 Mass. 1 (2023), cert. denied, 144 S.
Ct. 2683 (2024). The defendant challenges only the first
element.
As outlined above, the evidence was sufficient for a jury
rationally to conclude that the defendant was holding the
firearm at the time of the shooting. The defendant quoted the
victim as saying she knew "they" would not shoot her, allowing
an inference that he, not she, was holding the firearm when they
were alone in the corner. His reaction to the shooting was to
ask, "Oh, my God. What did I do?," a question the jury could
have concluded established possession of the firearm.
Furthermore, the defendant told the police interviewers that he
had possession of the firearm right before the shooting. Taken
together and viewed in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth, the evidence was sufficient to permit the jury to
conclude that the defendant possessed the firearm. See
Depradine, 42 Mass. App. Ct. at 405-406 (affirming conviction
for involuntary manslaughter where defendant admitted possession
of firearm when it discharged; defendant and victim "were close
10 to each other" at moment of discharge; only two people were
present in room; and testimony established that firearm could
not have been fired without pulling trigger). See also
Commonwealth v. Hubbard, 69 Mass. App. Ct. 232, 234-237 (2007)
(defendant's incriminating statements admitting to possession
and independent evidence corroborating crime sufficient to
establish defendant's possession of firearm).
2. Detective's testimony. The defendant challenges
testimony by the lead investigator (detective) in response to
the defendant's Bowden defense. See Commonwealth v. Bowden, 379
Mass. 472, 485-486 (1980). As the defendant timely objected, we
review any error under the prejudicial error standard.
Commonwealth v. Cruz, 445 Mass. 589, 591 (2005). "This requires
a two-part analysis: (1) was there error; and (2) if so, was
that error prejudicial." Id. "An error is not prejudicial if
it 'did not influence the jury, or had but very slight effect
. . . .'" Id., quoting Commonwealth v. Flebotte, 417 Mass. 348,
353 (1994).
"A Bowden claim refers to defendants' right to base their
defense on the failure of police adequately to investigate [the
crime] in order to raise the issue of reasonable doubt as to the
defendant's guilt in the minds of the jury" (quotation and
citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Colon, 482 Mass. 162, 186
11 (2019). When a defendant raises a defense under Bowden, "the
Commonwealth may offer testimony about why the investigators
chose the particular investigative path they did, in order to
rebut that defense" (quotation and citation omitted).
Commonwealth v. Wardsworth, 482 Mass. 454, 478 (2019). "The
permissible scope of rebuttal evidence depends, in part, on the
issues raised by the defense; the more wide-ranging the
defendant's attack on the police investigation, the broader the
Commonwealth's response may be" (quotation and citation
omitted). Colon, supra at 187.
A central theme of the defense was attacking the law
enforcement conclusion that the defendant had been handling the
firearm when it discharged. Unsurprisingly, the cross-
examination of the detective explored his failure to pursue
certain investigative steps that might have supported or
conflicted with this conclusion, including distance
determination testing, a shooting reconstruction, and gunshot
residue testing of the victim's hands and clothing. The
redirect limned these same topics. The detective testified
that, based in part on his education and experience, the
"stellate pattern" of the wound on the victim's head signified
to him that the firearm was against her head when it discharged,
so he had not requested the additional tests.
12 As the defendant argues, this testimony was inconsistent
with the medical examiner's opinion that a star-shaped wound
does not indicate "anything in particular as it relates to a
head wound," and that she made no observations of either the
exit or entrance wounds that "would be able to tell [her]
whether or not this was a closer-contact wound." The defendant
attacks the detective's testimony as inadmissible expert opinion
testimony, lacking a proper evidentiary basis, that the
detective was unqualified to offer, even as part of a Bowden
response.
When the "defendant has inserted into the case the
relevance of the police judgment and decisions . . . the officer
must be allowed to defend that judgment." Commonwealth v.
Lodge, 431 Mass. 461, 467 (2000). In such a case, "the
prosecutor may proceed by inquiring of the officer the reason
for each specific omission or decision." Id. "[T]he government
cannot be precluded entirely from explaining why the action
taken was correct in the circumstances." Id.
This is what the prosecutor did here. She followed the
cross-examination by questioning the detective about why he did
not take the additional investigative steps. The experienced
trial judge provided appropriate contemporaneous limiting
instructions on several occasions in connection with the
13 detective's Bowden rebuttal testimony. "[J]urors are presumed
to have followed the judge's instructions to disregard the
evidence." Commonwealth v. Durand, 475 Mass. 657, 669 (2016).
Even if some of this testimony came close to or crossed the
line into improper expert opinion -- a matter as to which we
take no position -- there was no prejudice. "[I]n response to
the jury's exposure to inadmissible evidence, the judge may
correctly rel[y] on curative instructions as an adequate means
to correct any error and to remedy any prejudice to the
defendant" (quotation and citation omitted). Commonwealth v.
Torres, 86 Mass. App. Ct. 272, 280 (2014). "Generally, provided
the instructions are reasonably prompt and the jury do not hear
the inadmissible evidence again, the error will be considered
cured." Commonwealth v. Roe, 90 Mass. App. Ct. 801, 804 (2016),
citing Commonwealth v. Kilburn, 426 Mass. 31, 38 (1997). So it
was here.
3. Admission of exhibit 73; exclusion of other video
evidence. Exhibit 73 was a "selfie" video recording taken the
day before the shooting. It depicted both Jnley and the
defendant in the front seat of a car, with Jnley waving a
firearm that looked similar to the nine millimeter firearm used
in the shooting. The defendant challenged its admission as
prior bad act evidence, arguing that the fact that the defendant
14 had been present while Jnley brandished the firearm had little
or no probative value and was simply propensity evidence. We
review for abuse of discretion and reverse only if we encounter
palpable error. See Commonwealth v. Corliss, 470 Mass. 443, 450
(2015), and cases cited.
The core of the defendant's argument is that the evidence
was inadmissible because the central question before the jury
"was whether [the defendant] would understand that attempting to
take the firearm from [the victim] was more unsafe than allowing
her to hold the gun to her head." This mischaracterizes the
central jury question and ignores the Latimore standard under
which we conduct our review.
We are not persuaded that the judge erred in assessing the
prejudice in light of the probative value of the evidence. She
concluded that exhibit 73 was admissible "for the limited
purpose of demonstrating the defendant's access to and knowledge
of firearms," and announced that she would give a limiting
instruction. So she did; after exhibit 73 was played, the judge
instructed the jury not to consider the video recording "as
evidence or proof that [the defendant] has any kind of a
criminal propensity or personality or bad character," but
"solely on the limited issue of the defendant['s] . . . access
to or knowledge of firearms." See Commonwealth v. Ridge, 455
15 Mass. 307, 323 (2009). She repeated these instructions in her
final charge. Indeed, the Supreme Judicial Court has "often
held that such evidence may be admissible to demonstrate the
defendant's access to or familiarity with firearms."
Commonwealth v. Andre, 484 Mass. 403, 414-415 (2020). The
limited admission, combined with the judge's contemporaneous and
final instructions, did not give rise to error.
The defendant also contends that the judge erred by
excluding other video evidence that showed Jnley with a firearm
similar to the one used in the shooting. The defendant was not
depicted in these recordings. Asserting that, without these
video recordings, he "could not demonstrate that the firearm was
[Jnley's]," the defendant claims that he was deprived of the
ability to "paint a full picture of the events for the jury,"
including that he did not bring the gun to the hotel.
The judge committed no error in excluding this evidence.
The ownership of the firearm was not at issue in the case and
was legally irrelevant to the charges being tried. While the
defendant was charged with possessing the firearm, this charge
related to the moments surrounding the victim's shooting, rather
than his ownership.
4. Errors in closing. The defendant identifies what he
views as three misstatements in the prosecutor's closing.
16 First, we agree that the prosecutor's attribution to the medical
examiner of the testimony that a "stellate wound" signaled a
close-contact wound was error. This was the detective's
testimony. Second, the defendant is incorrect that there was no
evidence to suggest that the victim's left hand was nondominant.
Her cousin testified that the victim was right-handed. Third,
the defendant challenges the prosector's argument that, after
the shooting, the defendant "would have had to unwrap [the
victim's] dead hand from" around the weapon to move it.
In analyzing a claim of an improper closing argument, we
review for prejudicial error those statements as to which the
defendant objected, Commonwealth v. Rosario, 430 Mass. 505, 515
(1999), and, as to the unpreserved claims, we review to
determine whether any error created a substantial risk of a
miscarriage of justice. Commonwealth v. Alphas, 430 Mass. 8, 20
(1999). "[T]he prosecutor's remarks must be viewed in light of
the 'entire argument, as well as in light of the judge's
instruction to the jury and the evidence at trial.'"
Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 437 Mass. 554, 565 (2002), quoting
Commonwealth v. Lamrini, 392 Mass. 427, 432 (1984).
"Prosecutors may 'argue forcefully for the defendant's
conviction.'" Commonwealth v. Martinez, 476 Mass. 186, 199
(2017), quoting Commonwealth v. Wilson, 427 Mass. 336, 350
17 (1998). "The jury are presumed to understand that a prosecutor
is an advocate, and statements that are '[e]nthusiastic
rhetoric, strong advocacy, and excusable hyperbole' will not
require reversal." Martinez, supra, quoting Wilson, supra at
351.
The defendant objected to the "stellate defect" testimony,
and we therefore review the prosecutor's error for prejudice.
We see none. The jury were instructed that their memory of the
facts controlled and, further, that the statements of the
lawyers were not evidence. Furthermore, there was ample other
evidence of close contact between the firearm and the victim's
head, which mitigated any prejudicial effect of this
misstatement.
We similarly perceive no error in the prosecutor's
statement about the defendant's removing the gun from the
victim's hand. This statement was part of the prosecutor's
argument about how the gun was removed from the hotel room after
the shooting. The defendant had admitted to the police that he
took the firearm from the room, and the prosecutor was
responding to a defense argument that, consistent with the
defense theory, the victim had been holding the gun when it
discharged. The prosecutor's response was intended to cast
doubt on this version of the shooting.
18 A prosecutor may "respond to the defense argument and also
comment on the . . . weakness of the defense, as long as
argument is directed at the defendant's defense and not at the
defendant's failure to testify" (quotation and citation
omitted). Commonwealth v. Witkowski, 487 Mass. 675, 686 (2021).
Furthermore, "[i]n closing argument, prosecutors are entitled to
marshal the evidence and suggest inferences that the jury may
draw from it. Those inferences need only be reasonable and
possible" (quotation and citations omitted). Commonwealth v.
Roy, 464 Mass. 818, 829 (2013). We perceive no error, and
certainly no error that would give rise to a substantial risk of
a miscarriage of justice.
Judgments affirmed.
By the Court (Desmond, Hershfang & Brennan, JJ.1),
Clerk
Entered: June 12, 2026.
1 The panelists are listed in order of seniority.