Commonwealth v. Leclair

445 Mass. 734 (2006)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D and his wife (W) were experiencing marital conflict. W decided to leave D because he was too controlling. She left their home on December 25 and did not tell D where she was staying. D was not able to locate her. A few days prior to the killing D told W's older son that his mother would be coming home and that he should 'take a picture of her because you might not see her again. W returned home on the morning of January 4, 1998. W's brother arrived shortly thereafter and found W and D talking in the kitchen. On her brother's arrival, W went outside on the back deck to smoke a cigarette. D said to the brother in law, 'She's not dead yet.' The brother then joined his sister on the deck. Five minutes later, they both went back inside the house, and W told D that she was going to leave him. D became upset. D and W then asked her brother to go outside and wait while they finished their conversation. The brother could hear that the conversation in the kitchen was 'getting loud.' W grabbed her cigarettes, lighter, and keys, and rejoined her brother on the deck. D, now visibly upset, followed. He pointed inches from his brother-in-law's face and said, 'I don't want you on my fucking property.' The brother responded, 'After everything that I heard that's going on, you don't want to mess with me.' D then swung at the brother but missed. The two men wrestled, and the brother eventually pinned D to the ground. The brother yelled to W to telephone the police. The two sons, now on the deck, screamed for the men to stop. The family dogs were barking and biting at the two men. W, who had gone into the house to telephone the police, ran back outside to urge her brother to let D go. The brother, who had planned to hold D until the police arrived, released him when D said, 'Just lay off, I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to do anything.' D went quickly into the kitchen and picked up a knife. W was in the kitchen on the telephone with the police, screamed, 'Oh my God, he's got a knife . . . Oh my God, he's going to stab me.' D grabbed W and, while her brother and sons looked on, raised the knife and brought it straight down into her upper arm. He then held the knife to W's throat and dragged her down the hallway. The two boys ran to a neighbor's house. D went toward the brother-in-law with the knife and said, 'I'll fucking kill her if you don't get out of the house.' W's brother then ran outside to wait for the police. When the police arrived, they found D kneeling on the floor beside W, a cocked revolver at his temple. One officer told him to put the weapon down, and D complied. D admitted that he stabbed W. W was pronounced dead that afternoon at a hospital. D gave a written statement to State police investigators admitting that he had stabbed W. D stated that he had been 'so mad something snapped...Since she wanted the relationship over then I was going to really end it by stabbing her.' D was tried and convicted of murder in the second-degree. D appealed. D argues that he was entitled to a voluntary manslaughter instruction because he had been provoked to a point where the jury reasonably could find manslaughter by reason of his fight with W's brother.