Crime

State Supreme Court affirms murder conviction in 2011 Dorchester shooting

August 26, 2016

1 minute to read

The state’s highest court affirmed Friday the first-degree murder conviction of a man who gunned down a 25-year-old at a Dorchester home in 2011, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.

Frankie Herndon, 32, had appealed his murder and firearms convictions in the 2011 death of Derrick Barnes who was shot to death on the porch of a relative’s Fayston Street home on August 27. Herndon’s appeal claimed the trial judge erred by using the state’s model jury instruction on eyewitness evidence instead of a version his attorney recommended.

The high court rejected that argument, saying, “The judge here did not abuse his discretion or otherwise err in declining to give the defendant’s requested eyewitness identification instruction and giving instead a version of the model … instruction.”

On the night of the shooting, Barnes, who was visiting family after Boston’s Caribbean Carnival, was sitting on the porch of a family member’s home with several other people just after 7 p.m. when Herndon and another man approached and initiated a verbal altercation, according to authorities. The men then opened fire, but police said after the initial shots, Herndon then calmly walked up to Barnes and fired again as the he lay fallen on the porch. Barnes was later pronounced dead at Boston Medical Center.

Authorities said Herndon was identified by eyewitnesses who knew the defendants, and those accounts were verified by surveillance cameras near the scene.

Frederick Henderson, 32, was also convicted at the same trial for his role in the murder, and his appeal is still pending, according to the statement.