Defense lawyer David Rountree argued Shadeed Mahdi had nothing to do with killing.
Shadeed Mahdi SPRINGFIELD - Shadeed J. Mahdi has been acquitted of murder in the September 2009 fatal shooting of Tory Lamont Smith.
A Hampden Superior Court jury acquitted Mahdi June 13.
Defense lawyer David Rountree had argued there was nothing to connect Mahdi to the homicide.
Smith was shot Sept. 15, 2009, on a stairwell of a seven-story apartment building at 15 Girard Ave.
The shooting, which occurred in the middle of the afternoon, prompted a temporary lock-down of the nearby Rebecca Johnson Elementary School and led a chaotic crime scene
with upwards of 50 people assembled, according to prosecution and defense lawyers
.
Mahdi, 25, of 75 Elmwood Ave., Holyoke, was arrested shortly after the shooting. The victim, Smith, was 27 and lived on Fenwick Street.
No gun was recovered and police found no gunshot residue on Mahdi.
The trial took place before Judge Tina S. Page.
Rountree said in an interview Monday a major factor in the outcome of the case was the identification procedure used and how the procedure can result in a wrong identification.
He said he is talking about a "show-up," where one person is shown to witnesses as opposed to any kind of photograph array or line up involving multiple people. The show up procedure was used in this case.
Rountree said he believes such a procedure, which is legally permissble in certain circumstances, often results in a misidentification.
The shooting of Smith came less than a month after another afternoon shooting nearby. In the earlier shooting, Jerry A. Hughes III, 21, was gunned down in the parking lot of the McDonald’s at the Mid-Town Plaza on State Street when bullets were sprayed into a crowded parking lot.
A 13-year-old boy was grazed in the foot by a bullet as he walked by the nearby Johnson school. Defendants in that case are awaiting trial.