Client did not wear boots, defense lawyer says
By Gary V. Murray
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
WORCESTER, Mass. — About 3-1/2 hours of jury deliberations failed to produce a verdict yesterday in the case of a county jail inmate accused of murdering his cellmate in 2005.
Dennis R. Hadley, 52, formerly of Rhode Island, is on trial in Worcester Superior Court on charges of murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (shod foot) in the Feb. 23, 2005, death of 42-year-old Daniel McMullen of Douglas. The prosecution alleges that Mr. Hadley, while wearing boots, kicked Mr. McMullen in the face and abdomen during the early morning hours of Feb. 3, 2005, in the cell the two men shared at the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction in West Boylston after an argument over a deck of playing cards.
Mr. Hadley denied kicking his cellmate and said in a written statement that he pushed Mr. McMullen after Mr. McMullen poked him in the eye with his finger. Mr. Hadley said Mr. McMullen, who was serving a 6-month sentence for driving under the influence of alcohol (second offense), fell after being pushed.
Mr. McMullen’s death at St. Vincent Hospital was attributed to complications from a torn spleen caused by blunt trauma. He was initially treated at the hospital for a cut lip on the morning of Feb. 3, 2005, and was then taken back to the jail.
Mr. McMullen was returned to the hospital about 15 hours later after complaining of abdominal pain. His spleen injury was discovered at that time and he was admitted to the hospital, where he developed pneumonia and an infection, lapsed into a coma and died. Dr. Richard Evans, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, said Mr. McMullen suffered from advanced liver disease and an enlarged spleen that made him more susceptible to a spleen injury than a healthy person would have been.
Deliberations by the jury of nine men and three women were scheduled to resume this morning.
“This wasn’t a murder. It was not murder. It was exactly what it was, two guys going at it and somebody gets a little cut. That’s all it was and it becomes something else when the investigators get involved,” Mr. Hadley’s lawyer, Margaret R. Guzman, said in her closing argument to the jury yesterday.
Ms. Guzman said there was nothing in the medical records from Mr. McMullen’s first visit to St. Vincent Hospital indicating he had an abrasion on his chin, an injury that was noted when he was brought back to the hospital the second time. She suggested the chin injury and spleen injury could have occurred between the two hospital visits and after Mr. Hadley and Mr. McMullen had been placed in cells apart from one another.
Ms. Guzman said there was no direct evidence that her client was wearing boots or that he kicked Mr. McMullen. She noted the absence of bruising on Mr. McMullen’s body. She also said there was no written documentation to support a May 25 conversation Correction Officer John Adams said he had with Mr. Hadley, in which Mr. Hadley allegedly told him he twice kicked Mr. McMullen.
“Sometimes people just die and sometimes there can be a fight at the jail and an inmate dies and everybody gets nervous,” Ms. Guzman told the jurors.
Assistant District Attorney Joseph T. Moriarty Jr. said the evidence was clear that Mr. Hadley kicked Mr. McMullen while wearing boots in “an unprovoked assault” and by doing so, caused his death.
The prosecutor referred to the testimony of Deputy Sheriff Thomas Chabot, who said he specifically asked Mr. Hadley on the morning of Feb. 3, 2005, whether he kicked Mr. McMullen. Deputy Chabot said Mr. Hadley hesitated for 15 to 20 seconds before answering that he did not.
“What’s so complicated about that question? It was complicated for him because he was trying to figure out what he was going to say,” Mr. Moriarty told the jurors.
The assistant district attorney showed the jury a photograph of Mr. McMullen taken before he was taken to the hospital the first time that he said depicted the scrape on his chin. He reminded the jurors of Dr. Evans’ testimony that the injuries to Mr. McMullen’s lip and spleen appeared to have occurred at about that time and that the spleen laceration might not have manifested itself right away.
Mr. Moriarty said the evidence showed Mr. McMullen “received a beating” from Mr. Hadley that proved fatal.
“Over what? Over a deck of playing cards?” he asked.
Copyright 2008 Telegram & Gazette