Says Duress Not a Defense against First-Degree Murder

BOSTON, July 18, 2012—The Supreme Judicial Court this week affirmed each of the convictions against three men who murdered a young woman on a railroad trestle and then dumped her body into the Charles River more than a decade ago, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

After the longest murder trial in modern Suffolk County history, a Suffolk Superior Court jury in 2005 convicted ISMAEL VASQUEZ (D.O.B. 2/15/78); his brother, LUIS VASQUEZ (D.O.B. 4/11/82); HAROLD PARKER (D.O.B. 11/23/73); and SCOTT DAVENPORT (D.O.B. 2/3/74) of first-degree murder for the Nov. 3, 2001, stabbing death of Io Nachtwey, a 21-year-old native of Hawaii, on a railway beneath the Boston University Bridge. All are serving life terms without the possibility of parole.

Jurors also convicted both Vasquez brothers and Parker of kidnapping for holding Nachtwey against her will in the hours preceding the murder, and additionally convicted Luis Vasquez of aggravated rape for forcing her to have sex with him, even as he knew that, minutes later, the gang would kill her.

The Vasquez brothers, both from Lawrence, and Davenport, a Cambridge resident, challenged their convictions in appeals to the SJC. Parker is pursuing a separate appeal; his case has not yet been heard by the high court.

In addition to those four defendants, two women – LAUREN ALLEYNE (D.O.B. 1/29/84) of Malden and ANA WHITE (D.O.B. 11/1/83) of Milton – pleaded guilty to the crime of manslaughter for their roles in Nachtwey’s homicide and received state prison sentences.

Evidence and testimony established that Nachtwey and other young people who gathered in the area of Harvard Square known as “the Pit” came together in the fall of 2001 to join a chapter of the Crips gang founded by the Vasquez brothers. Nachtwey was recalled as a gentle and innocent drifter who was too “childlike” to take part in their missions of robbery and petty crime.

Testimony indicated that Nachtwey’s boyfriend learned the two brothers were not Crips. He and others decided to reject their leadership. Ismael and Luis Vasquez learned of this through Alleyene and White as the four of them, plus Parker and Nachtwey, were at a hotel in Braintree.

The Vasquez brothers summoned Davenport, to whom they had sold heroin in the past, to pick them up in his car. He drove the group to Lawrence, where they obtained drugs for him and weapons for themselves. Davenport then drove them to an area in Cambridge near the Boston University Bridge. Luis Vasquez had sex with the victim, leading her to believe that he would now protect her.

The Vasquez brothers gave Davenport a knife with a 10” blade and told him he had to kill the girl. Parker, also armed, instructed White and Alleyene to walk the victim out on the bridge to a point near the Boston side of the Charles River. At that point, Ismael Vasquez shouted at the women to hold Nachtwey down. Davenport stabbed her repeatedly, shouting, “Die, bitch, die,” and “What a rush.”

Luis Vasquez then ran up and beat Nachtwey in the head with a pair of nunchuks before he and Davenport threw her into the water.

On appeal, Davenport claimed he killed the girl only because he was in fear for his own life. For the first time, the high court addressed this issue and rejected the defense, citing precedent in other state appeals.

“Every State appellate court, save one, that has decided whether duress may be a defense to murder under the State’s common law has held that it is no defense to intentional murder,” Justice Francis X. Spina wrote in the 18-page decision. “The one court that has not so held determined only that duress may negate the specific intent to kill where the defendant was not the actual killer but aided and abetted the killer.”

Decising the issue for Massachusetts, Spina wrote, “We are persuaded that, under our common law, a defendant is not excused from taking the life of an innocent person because of the threat of harm to himself,” but noted that “we do not foreclose the possibility that, in exceptional and rare circumstances of duress, justice may warrant a reduction of a defendant’s guilt.”

“We discern nothing in Davenport’s conviction that suggests [such reduction] might be appropriate,” Spina wrote with regard to Davenport specifically, “After he helped Luis throw [Nachtwey’s] body into the Charles River, he savored the moment. We see no reason to reduce the degree of guilt or to grant him a new trial.”

The Vasquez brothers claimed on appeal that their cases should have been severed from Davenport’s. The court rejected that claim as well.

“Severance is required only if the defenses are both mutually antagonistic (or mutually exclusive) and irreconcilable,” Spina wrote, citing federal decisions that co-defendants’ cases must be severed when “the sole defense of each was the guilt of the other” or “the acceptance of one party’s defense will preclude the acquittal of the other.”

Here, “Luis’s and Davenport’s respective defenses neither compelled the conviction of the other nor preclude the acquittal of the other … With respect to Ismael’s claim of prejudice from joinder, the jury could have believed Davenport killed the victim on his own initiative … He admitted killing the victim, and there was no evidence that anyone threatened him with a weapon or cut off any chance of escape.”

First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan prosecuted the case at trial. Assistant District Attorney Zachary Hillman of Conley’s Appellate Division defended the convictions before the SJC. Michael Coffey was the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Ismael Vasquez was represented on appeal by attorney Stephen Maidman, Luis Vasquez by David Lewis, and Davenport by Kevin Nixon.

–30–

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