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Commonwealth v. Yancy10/21/2003
t and knew him to be married. The defendant said that he shot his girl friend and suggested that some police officers be sent to her apartment. The officer immediately advised the defendant of his Miranda rights. The defendant acknowledged that he understood and indicated that he wanted to continue talking. He said he had argued with his girl friend over whether he should enter a detoxification program. He said that she started hitting him with a club, so he went into the next room, returned with a rifle, and shot her in the head. He said he took his rifle to his wife's apartment and asked for help. When she refused and threatened to telephone the police, he shot her also. When the defendant heard the officer give an incorrect address for his girl friend over the police radio, he corrected the officer.
The defendant underwent two surgical procedures and remained in the hospital nearly three weeks. At the time of his admission to the hospital, blood tests were positive for cocaine and benzodiazepine (Valium), and his blood alcohol level was 0.05. Hospital records indicate he told a nurse that he had had twelve beers in the previous twenty-four hours. While at the hospital, the defendant was under a suicide watch and under the care of two psychiatrists. He experienced a seizure and a delusional episode at the hospital. He also experienced a seizure at the house of correction to which he was later transferred.
Dr. Harold Bursztajn, a forensic psychiatrist and senior faculty member at Harvard Medical School, testified that in his opinion the defendant was unable to formulate a specific intent to kill either victim or to premeditate the killings. His opinion was based on his interviews with the defendant and his review of the police reports, the defendant's notes, the defendant's hospital records for the three weeks after the killings, records from the house of correction where the defendant was being held, records of Bridgewater State Hospital, and the SPECT scan report of Dr. Thomas C. Hill, a neuroradiologist. Dr. Bursztajn testified that in his opinion "there is an abnormality in the right temporal lobe [of the defendant's brain] . . . in the area of the mesiotemporal lobe where you have connections from the hippocampus, the amygdala going up to the cortex." He testified that a person with this type of abnormality who consumed alcohol, cocaine, and Valium would likely experience a "partial complex seizure" and psychoses that would cause him "to either freeze, underreact or overreact to a perceived stress " situation such as the arguments the defendant had with his wife and girl friend. This type of abnormality would also reduce a person's ability to process information and make judgments about what is right and wrong.
Dr. Hill's report, which was admitted in evidence, also indicated that the defendant had an organic brain disorder, namely, "frontal lobe abnormalities bilaterally," that corresponded with "areas of decreased activity in the frontal lobes." In addition, the Hill report described "a right temporal lobe abnormality . . . [that] involve the mesiotemporal cortex," consistent with the defendant's history of head trauma and a known seizure disorder. Dr. Hill did not testify, but Dr. Bursztajn, who ordered and attended the SPECT scan, compared transparencies of the defendant's SPECT scan to scan transparencies of a normal brain to illustrate the part of the brain affected, as support for his testimony about the behavioral manifestations of the decreased brain activity appearing in the SPECT scan results. In rebuttal, the Commonwealth called Dr. Martin Kelly, a forensic psychiatrist, who testified that, in his opinion, the defendant had the capacity both to intend and to premedita
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