BOSTON, July 11, 2018—The Massachusetts Appeals Court today reversed a judge’s decision granting a new trial for the man who caused Kelvin Rowell’s death from an asthma attack, reinstating a Suffolk Superior Court jury’s manslaughter verdict, District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

The nine-page decision came after Suffolk prosecutors appealed Judge Edward Liebensperger’s 2017 order granting MICHAEL STALLINGS, 29, a new trial for opening fire on a group of men on the night of Jan. 23, 2012, prompting Rowell to run for his life – and suffer an asthma attack that claimed his life. Rowell was found unresponsive with his inhaler in his hand and died after 42 days in a coma.

In his motion for a new trial, Stallings claimed that his trial attorney was constitutionally ineffective for not seeking a jury instruction on self-defense under the theory that another party had fired first. In fact, while defense counsel initially requested a self-defense instruction for the jury, he reconsidered after resting his case and focused instead on arguing that Stallings’ conduct did not, as a matter of law, cause Rowell’s death from the asthma attack. The defendant argued that this decision was “manifestly unreasonable,” but the Appeals Court rejected this claim.

“For several reasons we conclude that counsel’s choice was not manifestly unreasonable,” Justices William Meade, Diana Maldonado, and Sookyoung Shin wrote. “[H]ad counsel pursued a self-defense theory, the jury would have had to consider several additional elements, including whether the defendant ‘actually did believe that he was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, from which he could save himself only by using deadly force’ and whether he ‘availed himself of all proper means to avoid physical combat before resorting to the use of deadly force’ … Given the paucity of evidence on these elements, it was rational for counsel to focus the jury on the causation theory, which required only that they find reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant was the first shooter.”

Conley supported the Appeals Court’s decision.

“Neither the facts nor the law warranted a new trial here,” he said. “The defendant received a fair trial with the assistance of highly effective and experienced counsel. The trial jury found that a person who opens fire on a busy street without warning or provocation is responsible for what happens next, and the Appeals Court’s decision was the right one.”

During a week of trial, Assistant District Attorney Julie Higgins of the DA’s Homicide Unit introduced evidence and testimony proving that Stallings was armed with a .40 caliber handgun when he opened fire at a group of men in the area of Blue Hill Avenue and Pasadena Road on the night of Jan. 23, 2012. Rowell was among those in that group. Like others, he ran from the gunfire – but soon collapsed as he suffered a severe asthma attack brought on by the stress and exertion of fleeing down Pasadena Road. He died on March 5, 2012.

At the time of the shooting, Stallings was wearing a GPS device that placed him at the scene of that shooting in violation of a court-ordered curfew. He was arrested in August 2012 with a firearm that Boston Police criminalists matched to shell casings at the Jan. 23 shooting scene. After an exhaustive grand jury investigation that featured testimony from multiple civilian witnesses, Stallings was indicted on Jan. 31, 2013, convicted on June 1, 2015, and sentenced to a term of six to eight years in state prison.

Assistant District Attorney Teresa Anderson, who second-seated Higgins at trial, argued the appeal. Jennifer Sears was the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate.

–30–

All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.