## Facts

- After leaving a country club around 2 a.m., Jeffrey Thyng was approached by John Shea and Bradford Couronis following an exchange of derogatory remarks.
- Shea and Couronis followed Thyng, pushed him to the ground (breaking his hand), and repeatedly punched and kicked him while he was down.
- During the assault, Thyng was stabbed in the chest but could not identify which attacker stabbed him.
- Police arrived and chased Shea and Couronis, apprehending them near a truck shortly after the stabbing.
- Police found no weapon on Couronis.
- Police found a blood-soaked knife in an unbuckled sheath on Shea’s belt, and observed blood on the insides of Shea’s hands, his coat, his right arm, and his belt.
- Couronis had blood on his clothing but not on his hands or arms.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Shea was the stabber and acted with specific intent to kill for armed assault with intent to murder.
2. Whether the jury instructions, read as a whole, correctly required proof of specific intent to kill and avoided a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice.
3. Whether a grant of further appellate review of one conviction brings separate, related convictions before the Supreme Judicial Court absent an express directive.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court reversed the Appeals Court’s reversal and affirmed Shea’s conviction for armed assault with intent to murder.
- The court held the circumstantial evidence permitted a rational jury to find Shea stabbed Thyng and did so with specific intent to kill.
- The court held the instructions, taken as a whole, adequately conveyed the elements of armed assault with intent to murder, including specific intent to kill, and did not create a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice.
- The court limited its review to the armed assault with intent to murder conviction and declined to review the separate assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon conviction.

## Legal Principles

- Evidence is sufficient if, viewing it in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, a rational jury could find each element beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Identity and intent may be proved by circumstantial evidence, including possession of the weapon and the distribution of blood consistent with use of the weapon.
- Specific intent to kill may be inferred from the use of a deadly weapon aimed at a vital part of the body in the course of a violent assault.
- Jury instructions are evaluated as a whole; isolated phrases do not require reversal if the charge fairly and accurately states the law.
- A grant of further appellate review brings before the court issues bearing on the conviction under review, but does not automatically extend to separate, related convictions absent an express directive.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Judicial Court reinstated the armed assault with intent to murder conviction, holding that the knife found on Shea and the surrounding circumstances supported findings that he was the stabber and intended to kill, that the jury instructions adequately required specific intent to kill, and that further appellate review was confined to the conviction identified in the court’s order.


Commonwealth v. Shea, 398 Mass. 264, 496 N.E.2d 631 (Mass. 1986)