Case Set New Standard for Post-Conviction Claims of Incompetence

BOSTON, March 15, 2016— The state’s highest court today affirmed the first-degree murder conviction of a man who shot his estranged mother in the head, killing her, more than a decade ago, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

DEMOND CHATMAN (D.O.B. 6/20/73) was convicted of first-degree murder in 2002 for the Feb. 10, 2000, shooting death of 41-year-old Mary Chatman in Roxbury. The Supreme Judicial Court today affirmed that conviction and an earlier lower court decision denying his motion for a new trial. The SJC found that Chatman failed to offer compelling evidence that he was unable to assist in his own defense at the time of his trial – an argument he did not raise until six years after those proceedings.

After Chatman’s first motion for a new trial on those grounds was denied in 2011, the high court set a new standard for post-conviction claims of incompetence when that claim is not raised at trial. The SJC ordered an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Chatman could show by a preponderance of evidence that, at the time of trial, prosecutors would not have proven that he lacked either the ability to consult meaningfully with his attorney or the ability to understand the proceedings.  After four days of testimony in 2014 pursuant to that order, the chief justice of the Superior Court found that Chatman failed to meet either prong.

“There is no credible evidence that the defendant was incompetent at the time of trial,” she wrote then.

In today’s 27-page decision authored by Justice Robert J. Cordy, the SJC affirmed that finding, noting that the critical witness for Chatman – a psychologist retained by his appellate attorney – failed to interview the one person who could shed the clearest light on Chatman’s mental state at the relevant time: the veteran trial attorney who had represented him for two years leading up to the proceedings and interacted with him daily while they were ongoing.

“It was not unreasonable for the motion judge to conclude that, while [the defense psychologist] is no doubt qualified to opine regarding the defendant’s mental illness and about his competence at the time of his interviews, it was problematic that he reached the conclusion that the defendant was unable meaningfully to consult with his attorney or rationally to understand the proceedings at trial without speaking to the only people who could offer insight into that time period, aside from the defendant,” Cordy wrote.

The defense expert was one of 10 witnesses who testified at the 2014 hearings, including Chatman’s trial attorneys who recalled no difficulty in communicating with the defendant, as well as a social worker, case manager, and other doctors, including those who met with Chatman in the days and weeks following his conviction. Those clinicians uniformly and independently described Chatman as alert, aware, oriented, and organized.

Chatman is currently serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for the shooting death of his mother, from whom he was estranged and toward whom he had a longstanding hostility.

Evidence presented at trial proved that Chatman shot her once in the back of the neck in his bedroom at his great-aunt’s Maywood Street home, then moved her body to another bedroom and called 911.  Chatman told police that he had returned home from jogging to discover that his mother had been shot; testimony showed that the bullet wound would not have been visible to Chatman and was only observed by the medical examiner after the victim’s head was shaved during an autopsy.

Prosecutors proved that, after murdering his mother, Chatman made attempts to clean up the crime scene but left his mother’s blood on the floor of his bedroom, a mop, washcloths, and other items.  He also left a bloody fingerprint in his bedroom and shoeprints cast in the victim’s blood on the bathroom floor and inside the bathtub.

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 at trial and represented the Commonwealth during the 2014 evidentiary hearings.  Chatman was represented on appeal by Edward Hayden.

–30–

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