Defense Expert “Essentially Eviscerated” His Own Opinion during Hearings

BOSTON, Dec. 29, 2014—In a withering, 24-page decision, the chief justice of the Superior Court denied a new trial for a man who murdered his own mother almost 15 years ago, finding that the lone witness to opine that he was incompetent to assist in his trial defense “essentially eviscerated” his own determination under cross-examination by Suffolk prosecutors.

Chief Justice Barbara Rouse’s decision, written on Nov. 25 and received earlier this month by the Appellate Division of Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office, marks the second time that DEMOND CHATMAN (D.O.B. 6/20/73) has been denied a new trial in the February 2000 murder of his estranged mother, 41-year-old Mary Chatman.

The convicted killer’s previous motion for new trial, also based on his competency to stand trial, was denied in 2011. He appealed that denial to the Supreme Judicial Court. Last year, the SJC remanded the case back to Suffolk Superior Court for evidentiary hearings to determine whether, at the time of his trial, Chatman suffered from a mental illness that was simultaneously so debilitating as to prevent him from assisting in his own defense and so subtle that not even his trial attorney recognized it – a claim put forth by his appellate attorney.

“There is no credible evidence that the defendant was incompetent at the time of trial,” Rouse wrote, noting that the legal standard for competency is not whether a person suffers from a mental illness but rather whether he or she can consult meaningfully with attorneys and have a rational understanding of the proceedings. Chatman was found competent to assist in his motions for a new trial.

In a series of hearings between January and June of this year, the court heard from 10 witnesses, including six doctors, a licensed clinical social worker, a case manager, and Chatman’s two trial attorneys. Of that number, only one – Robert Joss, a psychologist hired by Chatman’s appellate attorney – opined that the defendant did not meet the criteria for competency at the time of his 2002 trial.

Joss was not present at the trial and did not interview the defendant until more than three years after its conclusion. In reaching his 2008 opinion that Chatman was not competent six years earlier, Joss spoke only with the defendant, a social worker who had worked with the defendant some 13 years before the trial, and a clinician who had never evaluated the defendant at all. He did not speak with the only person who could testify to Chatman’s ability to consult with his lawyer or understand the proceedings – trial attorney John Bonistalli, who represented Chatman for the two years leading up to trial and interacted with him every day during those proceedings.

“It is telling that Dr. Joss failed to interview Bonistalli, who was in the best position to inform Dr. Joss about these matters, before he formed his opinion,” Rouse wrote, adding that Joss’ conclusion that Chatman couldn’t assist Bonistalli in his defense “has no credible factual underpinnings.”

Bonistalli, who had been practicing as an attorney for 25 years at the time of Chatman’s trial, testified to his belief “that the defendant was assisting and cooperating with him with respect to the background of the case,” Rouse wrote. “Bonistalli had the impression that he and the defendant were communicating with each other, that the defendant understood what Bonistalli was talking about, and that the defendant was aware of the charges that were pending, the significance of the trial, and what was going to be presented in the courtroom when the case was tried.”

Rouse also reviewed notes from clinicians who worked with Chatman immediately after his conviction and in the days that followed. They bolstered Bonistalli’s testimony that Chatman showed no signs of a massive mental illness rendering him unable to consult with his attorney or rationally understand the proceedings.

Darren Sandler, a licensed mental health counselor at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, evaluated Chatman the day after his conviction and found that “He presents calm and cooperative and mood is euthymic. There are no vegetative signs or symptoms of psychosis. He is alert and oriented … His affect was appropriate to content.”

A licensed clinical social worker at MCI Souza-Baronowski, to where Chatman was transferred a few days later, “noted that the defendant was nervous, but also alert, oriented, articulate, logical, and made good eye contact … his concentration was not impaired, his appearance was neat and clean, his speech was well modulated, his thought process was logical, and his thought content was organized and goal oriented. Finally, the defendant was not experiencing delusions or hallucinations.”

In fact, the only clinician to hold that Chatman had not been competent to stand trial was Joss, whose “concessions on cross-examination essentially eviscerated his opinion that the defendant was unable to rationally understand the proceedings,” Rouse wrote.

In reaching her final decision, Rouse considered not whether Chatman suffered from a mental illness but whether, at the time of the trial, he could consult meaningfully with counsel and whether he had a rational understanding of the proceedings against him.

“Overall, the overwhelming evidence presented at the hearing indicated that the defendant has not had difficulty communicating despite his mental illness,” she wrote. “Bonistalli’s testimony is the most compelling and reliable with respect to the ability of the defendant to consult and communicate with him.”

Rouse also noted that the two clinicians who evaluated Chatman at separate facilities shortly after trial independently corroborated Bonistalli’s impressions and found him to be alert, aware, oriented, and organized.

“With respect to … whether the defendant had a rational understanding of the proceeding against him, the evidence is abundant that he did,” Rouse wrote. “The evidence here shows that the defendant knew he was on trial for murder, understood the role of the prosecutor and defense counsel, and the role of the judge and jury.”

Chatman, who legally owned a handgun, had a longstanding hostility toward his mother and lived instead with her aunt. On Feb. 10, 2000, when Mary Chatman went to visit that aunt, Chatman shot her once in the back of the neck in his bedroom. He attempted to clean up the blood and push her dead body out a window, but failed in both efforts. He then deposited her body behind the headboard of the aunt’s bed and called 911, reporting that he had come home from jogging to find her shot.

Evidence at trial showed that Mary Chatman’s fatal injury would not have been visible to someone observing her body in situ. Even a state pathologist testified that he had to shave her head to find the gunshot wound at autopsy. Additional evidence showed that Chatman made furious efforts to clean up the crime scene in his bedroom, leaving his mother’s blood on the floor of his room, on a mop, on washcloths, and on a fan he used to dry the floor. He left a fingerprint cast in his mother’s blood on his bedroom wall and footprints from his sneaker cast in her blood on the bathroom floor and inside the bathtub. The clothes he was wearing prior to the murder were found in the washing machine afterward. There were no signs of forced entry into the apartment.

Assistant District Attorney Cailin Campbell of the DA’s Appellate Division argued the case before the SJC. Assistant District Attorney Mark Lee, deputy chief of the DA’s Homicide Unit, prosecuted the case in 2002 and represented the Commonwealth during this year’s evidentiary hearings.

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