Man to spend rest of life in prison for 2009 murder of a Maine woman in Dorchester

The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld Amos Don's conviction for the 2009 murder of Erica Field, shot dead as she sat in a car on Norwell Street with her boyfriend, who was also shot, but who survived.

The state's highest court said Don got a fair trial, that his attorney was not incompetent and that some 1,400 pages of Boston Medical Center records on the boyfriend's condition after the shooting did not add anything to the information contained in the 600 pages of records that Don's attorney had access to before and during the trial.

In his appeal, Don's new attorney said his trial lawyer made a crucial mistake not cross examining prosecutors' expert witnesses and not hiring any expert witnesses of his own. The court, however, concluded it could not find fault with the trial attorney's logic that "he believed that the forensic evidence was not helpful to the defense so [he] tried to stay away from it," but that even if a better lawyer might have taken on the prosecution witnesses, the decision "did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice."

At the time of her death, Erica Field was living in Lewiston, ME with her 11-year-old daughter and her boyfriend, Shameek Garcia. Don, according to the court's summary of the case, traveled from Dorchester to Lewiston to sell cocaine and heroin. He met Field and Garcia at a house used for drug sales in Maine's second largest city - and struck a deal with Garcia to begin shipping drugs on the regular up north:

About a week before the murder, the defendant discovered that his supply of heroin -- for which he still owed his Boston suppliers about $6,000 -- was missing. The defendant initially blamed Samantha Leonard, a heroin user and a friend of Field and Garcia. Leonard had recently spent time with the defendant in his bedroom, and when the two were leaving, she had made a point of returning to the room alone to retrieve her cellular telephone. The defendant told Garcia "that if it took him a year or two, he'd put that bitch [Leonard] in a box." The next day the defendant confronted Leonard about the missing heroin, telling her in a "very scary" tone that he "wanted his shit." Leonard told the defendant "he was looking at the wrong person that was sitting there smoking his money," referring to Garcia.

Not long after, the summary continues, Don and Garcia agreed to drive down to Boston to pick up more cocaine - and to try to get more time to pay his supplier back for the missing cocaine. Garcia borrowed a friend's red Ford sedan - in exchange for some cash and coke - and they brought Field with them since Garcia did not have a valid license.

Upon arriving in Boston, they went to the defendant's home. The defendant spent some time on the telephone trying to contact his suppliers. A few hours later, the defendant said he had "found somebody," and they got in the red Ford and began driving to a different location. Garcia drove, with Field in the front passenger seat and the defendant in the rear driver's side seat. The defendant told Garcia where to go, and at some point, they began following a silver sedan. During this time, Garcia gave the defendant the cash that he had brought to spend on the cocaine.

The two vehicles came to a stop in a lot on Norwell Street. The defendant got out of the red vehicle and got into the back seat of the silver vehicle. He stayed in the silver vehicle for a few minutes before returning to the red Ford and getting in the back seat on the driver's side. The last thing Garcia remembers is turning to his right toward the back seat and asking the defendant if they were "all set."

People in a nearby house heard three gunshots ("pop, pop," then a pause, then "pop") and called the police. Sergeant Detective Sean Doherty responded to a call for shots fired at the lot on Norwell Street. Upon arriving, he observed Garcia standing in the doorway of the front driver's side door of the red Ford. Garcia walked around the front of the vehicle to the front passenger side and dove head first onto Field's lap. Field appeared nonresponsive. Garcia then fell out of the vehicle onto his knees and fell backward onto the ground.