BOSTON, Feb. 13, 2015—The state’s highest court this week denied a new trial for two men convicted of murder four decades ago, while an appeals court upheld the conviction of a man who killed an infant.

In a Feb. 11 decision authored by Judge Geraldine Hines, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed a lower court judge’s decision denying a new trial for ENFRID BROWN and WILLIAM JOHNSON (A.K.A. ABDULLAH K. SABREE), who were convicted of first-degree murder for the May 1, 1973, murder of Hakim Jamal, then the international president of the Malcolm X Foundation, inside his apartment.

During the men’s first trial in 1973, prosecutors introduced evidence of the men’s guilt under the theory of felony murder – a murder occurring during the commission of another felony – and the theory of deliberate premeditation.  The jury found both men guilty of murder in the first degree under the theory of felony murder.  Those convictions, however, were ultimately overturned by the Supreme Judicial Court on grounds unrelated to the current appeal.

The defendants were retried and convicted once again on July 31, 1975, of first-degree murder.  Prosecutors again sought to prove the defendants’ guilt under the theories of premeditation and felony murder; this second jury, however, did not specify a theory of culpability – an accepted practice at that time.  The SJC later affirmed the convictions.

In their latest appeal, the Brown and Johnson claimed that in convicting them under only the theory of felony murder in 1973, the jurors in their first trial effectively acquitted them of premeditated murder, and that prosecuting them under that theory violated their right against double jeopardy.  The justices disagreed, finding that the jury “did not unequivocally reject defendant’s guilt on the theory of deliberate premeditation.”

“There was no acquittal and therefore no error in prosecuting the defendants on that same theory in the second trial,” the justices wrote.

Prosecutors in 1975 proved that, on the morning of Jamal’s murder, a man who shared Jamal’s apartment became involved in an argument with a woman who then reported the argument to a group known as De Mau Mau, which included the defendants.  Brown, Johnson, and three other men forced their way into the apartment, and Jamal was fatally shot by one of the men as he attempted to raise a shotgun at the intruders.

Also Wednesday, an Appeals Court panel issued an unpublished decision affirming the 2005 second-degree murder conviction of BOBBY ROBINSON (D.O.B. 9/26/72) in the violent shaking death of 17-month-old Shalena Robinson in a Dorchester apartment on Oct. 3, 2001.  In their decision, the justices stated that Robinson was convicted on “overwhelming evidence.”

In his appeal, Robinson claimed that the testimony of a substitute medical examiner violated his right to confront the witnesses against him.  The court stated that the substitute medical examiner’s testimony was cumulative of other evidence presented at trial – including testimony from the emergency room physician who treated Shalena and observed retinal hemorrhaging and bruising on the victim’s neck and under her chin and the testimony of a medical expert.

Robinson similarly argued that the expert witness should not have been permitted to offer an opinion on the amount of force necessary to cause such injuries.  Although the testimony spoke to a central issue of whether the injuries were intentionally inflicted, it did not address the issue of the defendant’s guilt.

The justices also found no error in the trial judge’s decision not to allow evidence that the mother accidentally dropped the child nearly a year prior to the murder, determining that it was not relevant to a third-party culprit defense.

“Here, the judge properly excluded the evidence of the mother’s alleged prior bad act because the incident was too remote in time and involved readily distinguishable  circumstances,” the justices wrote.

In a third matter, Suffolk prosecutors said that they would seek an additional hearing before the SJC following the high court’s reversal yesterday of the 1994 convictions of MICHAEL COWELS and MICHAEL MIMS in the stabbing death of Belinda Miscioscia, whose badly beaten body was found behind an industrial building in Chelsea a year earlier. A bag of marijuana was tucked into her bra, significant because witness testimony indicated that she had gone to buy marijuana from Cowels and had sex with him and Mims.

Suffolk prosecutors assented to post-conviction DNA testing in the case several years ago, as is their presumptive policy when such testing was unavailable at the time of trial. The new round of testing showed, primarily, two things: first, that semen recovered from a vaginal swab taken from the victim indisputably came from Mims, corroborating witness testimony against him, and second, that blood on a towel found in the witness’ home several weeks after the murder did not belong to the victim or defendants, corroborating the trial testimony of a state serologist.

Because the post-conviction DNA testing supported and corroborated the trial testimony – and, if anything, strengthened the case against Mims – the trial judge in 2011 denied the defendants’ motion for a new trial. The high court, however, found that “the towels likely were a real factor in the jury’s deliberations” and reversed the trial judge’s decision and the underlying convictions. Though the SJC opined as to the towel’s import to the jury, it did not similarly consider the strength of Mims’ DNA on the vaginal swab, its corroboration of the trial testimony, or its likely effect on the jury’s deliberations.

If the case went to trial today, prosecutors said, the towel would not be part of the evidence, but the DNA from the victim’s vaginal swab would.  The swab, which directly implicates Mims and strongly supports the witness who testified against him and Cowels, is of far greater value than the towel, prosecutors said.

Assistant District Attorney Zachary Hillman of the DA’s Appellate Unit argued Robinson’s case on appeal, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Sears of the DA’s Appellate Unit represented the Commonwealth in the appeal by Brown and Johnson, and Assistant District Attorney Helle Sachse argued the Cowels and Mims case.

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