Court agrees man murdered his girlfriend with a machete in Roxbury in 1997, but says DA has to decide whether to agree to a reduction in his sentence or try him all over again

The Supreme Judicial Court agreed with a jury today that Lazaro Miranda murdered his girlfriend in her Seaver Street apartment building with a machete in 1997, but that a key omission in jury instructions by the judge in the case means the Suffolk County District Attorney's office has to decide whether to accept a change in his sentence from first- to second-degree murder or whether it wants to re-try him on a charge of first-degree murder on the grounds of "extreme atrocity or cruelty."

Under his initial first-degree murder conviction, decided by a Suffolk Superior Court jury in 2000, Miranda would spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Should the DA's office accept the change to a second-degree murder conviction, Miranda would still face life behind bars, but with the right to request parole - although with no guarantee he would get it.

According to the court's summary of the case, Miranda was charged with repeatedly striking, or "chopping" Lisa McLester, 27, in the head and upper body with a machete in the hallway and stairs leading to her apartment while yelling at her about stepping out on him - as her four-year-old son watched.

Police found Miranda, who had previously been convicted of beating his ex-wife, wandering Edinboro Street in Chinatown several hours later, still in possession of the bloody machete he'd used, although parts of its plastic handle were found back in the Seaver Street hallway, along with large quantities of McLester's battered body - and her blood.

At trial, prosecutors argued - and the jury agreed - that Miranda was guilty of first-degree murder on the grounds of "extreme atrocity or cruelty," rather than premeditated murder.

The defendant argues that he is entitled to a new trial because the trial judge erred by declining to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter under a theory of sudden combat, and on the combined effects of mental impairment from mental illness and intoxication negating the intent or knowledge required for murder in the first degree under a theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty, which would have warranted a lesser conviction of murder in the second degree.

The court first disposed of the "sudden combat" theory, a legal theory involving a person suddenly finding himself in a violent confrontation with no escape or chance to regain control. Although Miranda claims McLester reached for her own machete and even managed to swing it at him, making him reach for his own machete, the court said that's not good enough in this case:

First and foremost, the defendant admitted that the victim struck no blow against him; he had no physical injuries whatsoever. ... Secondly, although the conflict began in the apartment, the defendant chased the victim into the common hallway of the apartment building and downstairs into the foyer, where she was killed, leaving him ample time to regain a measure of self-control.

But Miranda's attorney made a more compelling case that the judge in the case failed to adequately impress on the jury the need to consider whether Miranda was so impaired by existing mental illness and drunkenness that although he may have killed McLester, he might not have done so out of "extreme atrocity or cruelty," because he was not deliberately out to murder her the way he did, the court continued.

The jury did not convict the defendant of murder in the first degree on the theory of deliberate premeditation where they received a specific instruction to consider mental impairment, but they did convict him on a theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty where such an instruction was omitted. Under these circumstances, in the absence of the required instruction, "we cannot say that 'we are substantially confident that, if the error had not been made, the jury verdict would have been the same'" This error, therefore, created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.

But, the court continued, the judge did provide adequate instructions that could have led the jury to convict Miranda of second-degree murder, since that's based more on the simple fact of whether or not he killed her.

Here, apart from failing to instruct the jury to consider mental impairment for the purpose of atrocity or cruelty, the judge otherwise properly instructed the jury on intent and malice, and the other elements of murder in the second degree, and there was ample evidence to support such a verdict.

The court said that, normally, in such cases, prosecutors request that, should the court find a first-degree conviction is not warranted, the justices change the verdict to second-degree murder. But in this case, the court said, prosecutors didn't request that - so now the Suffolk County DA's office has to decide whether to move for a reduction in the sentence to second-degree murder or seek an entirely new trial roughly 23 years after the first one.