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Victor E. Smith v. Thomas Dickhaut

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Before Boudin, Selya and Stahl, Circuit Judges.

Victor Smith is serving a life sentence in a Massachusetts state prison for first-degree murder. Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) affirmed Smith’s conviction on direct review, Commonwealth v. Smith, 864 N.E.2d 1194 (Mass. 2007), and he now appeals from the federal district court’s denial of habeas relief. The facts underlying the conviction are set out at length in the SJC’s opinion, and need only be summarized here.

Smith and a friend, Francis Albis, spent the evening of March 4, 2000, “bar hopping” in North Adams, Massachusetts. They each consumed about ten drinks over the course of six hours or so, and witnesses reported that they showed signs of drinking but did not seem drunk. Early in the evening, Smith also consumed two Artane pills, a medication prescribed to him for treating Tourette’s Syndrome (“Tourette’s”), which Smith had been diagnosed with at a young age. Smith, 864 N.E.2d at 1196, 1202.*fn1

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