New trial ordered for man convicted of killing combatant in fight he initially had nothing to do with

The Supreme Judicial Court today ordered a new murder trial for James Allen, convicted of fatally shooting Senai Jamaal Williams on Homestead Street in Roxbury in 2010, because the jury got muddled instructions from the judge on whether it could choose between finding him guilty of second-degree murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Allen interjected himself into a battle between occupants of two Homestead Street buildings on one group's desire to smoke pot earlier in the day: A group of people at 23 Homestead decided to light up in a hallway at 20 Homestead because the mother of one of the 23 Homestead group was at home; the 20 Homestead group demanded they leave.

A fight several hours after the initial confrontation between representatives of the two groups escalated from fists to knives. Then Allen, who had nothing to do with the initial dispute, fatally shot Williams, from 20 Homestead, by firing over the shoulder of a friend who lived at 23 Homestead.

Allen's attorney argued that Allen was acting "in defense of another" - his friend who was battling in the middle of the street - and that that should, at worse, subject him to a guilty finding of manslaughter by excessive force.

In its ruling, the state's highest court said the judge in the trial left the jury with the impression that if it concluded Allen had used "excessive force," it had no choice but to convict him of second-degree murder, which it did.

But that was wrong, legally, because there are situations where excessive force could be required to defend another person, the court ruled, adding that it did have a bit of trouble with this particular case, because defense of another usually involves a more clear-cut distinction between the person under attack and his attackers:

The facts in this case present a murkier scenario than one where an innocent party is set upon by an attacker. The victim and Buchanan were engaged in mutual combat when the defendant fired his gun at the victim. The policy underlying the defense of another intrinsically comprehends a distinction between circumstances that justify coming to the aid of another, and those where the actions of the aider, rather than minimizing the effect of unlawful violent acts, aggravate it, and it is for the fact finder to differentiate between these scenarios.

The court did uphold Allen's convictions on charges of carrying a firearm without a license, possession of ammunition without a firearms identification card, and possession of a large capacity firearm feeding device without a license.