HOLYOKE — A Springfield man indicted on a charge of first-degree murder after being accused of fatally shooting a beauty salon worker at the Holyoke Mall in January 2023 will have the charge reduced and can use a self-defense argument, according to a decision issued by the Supreme Judicial Court this week.
In the decision, released Tuesday, the SJC ruled that Kenneth J. Santana-Rodriguez can use the principle of “transferred intent self-defense” in the killing of Trung Tran, 33, of West Springfield, inside the Touch of Beauty Hair & Nail Salon at the mall.
Tran, a technician at the salon, was the unintended victim after Santana-Rodriguez, who has told the court that he felt threatened by a man who entered the salon, fired two shots from his 9mm Glock pistol, one of which hit Tran in the chest.
In May 2023, a Hampden County grand jury indicted Santana-Rodriguez on the first-degree murder charge.
“On appropriate facts, a defendant may assert a claim of transferred intent self-defense to justify the death of an unintended victim, such as an innocent bystander, killed during the lawful exercise of self-defense against an assailant,” the court ruled.
The decision was based, in part, on witness accounts, including a woman who had accompanied Santana-Rodriguez to the salon for a pedicure. A third man who entered the salon, and shares a child with the woman, allegedly displayed a firearm in his waistband and threatened Santana-Rodriguez by saying, “You know what’s about to happen,” and also reportedly struck him in the face with his hand.
Santana-Rodriguez remains held without the right to bail.
The court noted its decision would be unusual. “To date, we have not recognized transferred intent self-defense as a part of our common-law homicide jurisprudence.”
It cited case law in several other states.
“We conclude that a defendant’s lawful self-defense against an assailant may excuse the killing of an unintended victim, such as an innocent bystander. This is not, however, a defense to wanton or reckless conduct. A defendant may therefore be held criminally liable for the lesser included offense of involuntary manslaughter if the Commonwealth proves that a defendant’s exercise of self-defense was wanton or reckless so as to create a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm would result to an unintended victim.”