Commonwealth v. Pagan
| Decision Date | 09 September 2003 |
| Citation | 794 NE 2d 1184,440 Mass. 84 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH vs. ANGEL LUIS PAGAN. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Present: Marshall, C.J., Ireland, Spina, Cowin, & Sosman, JJ.
Matthew A. Kamholtz for the defendant.
Jane Davidson Montori, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
A Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of armed home invasion and murder in the first degree on the theories of deliberate premeditation and felony-murder. On appeal, the defendant claims that the judge erred in allowing the prosecutor to introduce evidence of prior bad acts and to present some of that prior bad act evidence by way of rebuttal. In a pro se brief, the defendant also claims that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, that the judge gave an improper missing witness instruction, and that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of either armed home invasion or murder. Finally, the defendant asks this court to exercise its power pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E, and order a new trial. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the convictions and decline to award relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.
1. Facts. Viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the evidence was as follows. Beginning in 1990, the defendant had a relationship with Rosa Cruz, but broke off that relationship in the winter of 1993, a few months after Cruz became pregnant with the defendant's child. Thereafter, Cruz refused to see the defendant, but, after the baby's birth in May, 1993, did allow him to visit the baby. On June 5, 1993, the defendant, carrying a gun in his pants, kicked in the door of Cruz's apartment and threatened to kill Cruz if he saw her with another man.
Sometime in early 1994, Cruz began a new relationship with another man, Angel Tolentino. The record is unclear as to when the defendant found out about this new relationship. On October 10, 1994, the defendant confronted Tolentino and his brother in an alley. Tolentino said to the defendant, "We got to talk." The defendant replied, "We don't have to talk about anything," and pulled out an automatic pistol. The defendant pointed the gun at Tolentino and pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed. The defendant swore, and tried to cock the weapon again and clear the jam, but Tolentino and his brother fled.
One week later, during the evening of October 17, Cruz and Tolentino were in Cruz's apartment. The defendant knocked on the door, but Cruz refused to answer. Undaunted, the defendant kicked in the door and entered the living room. He first looked at Tolentino, then "smacked" Cruz in the face. After the defendant left, Cruz telephoned the police and reported the incident.
Three days later, on the night of October 20, at approximately 8:30 P.M., the defendant returned to Cruz's apartment accompanied by two men. At the time, Cruz was in the bathroom taking a shower; her friend, Belinda Santos, was doing laundry in the kitchen; Tolentino and Santos's boy friend, Steven Cartwright, were watching television in the living room with Cartwright's three year old son and Cruz's two children. Suddenly and unannounced, the defendant and one of his companions came through the door and into the living room while the third man stood in the front door. Tolentino retreated to the bedroom, locking the bedroom door behind him. The defendant said, "There he is," and the defendant and his cohort headed down the short hallway that led to the bedroom. Both men drew semiautomatic weapons from their waists, pulled back the slides of the weapons, and kicked open the bedroom door. The two guns fired two shots each, with three of the shots striking Tolentino. One shot hit Tolentino in the chin and passed through the back of the neck, severing the spinal cord. The medical examiner opined that that shot had been fired at a range of from eight to ten inches, and that such a wound would be fatal within at most a few minutes. Before leaving the apartment, the defendant stopped in the living room and stared at Santos for a moment with a smile on his face. During the encounter, Santos feared that he would shoot her.1
After the men left, Cruz came out of the bathroom and discovered Tolentino bleeding on the floor of the bedroom. Santos entered and told Cruz that "Lito" (a nickname referring to the defendant) had shot Tolentino.2 They contacted the Springfield police and tended to Tolentino's injuries while awaiting their arrival. After an ambulance took Tolentino away, police officers escorted Santos and Cartwright to the police station. Both Santos and Cartwright picked the defendant's photograph from an array and identified him as one of the assailants.
In the early morning hours of October 21, the police obtained a warrant for the defendant's arrest. They tried to locate the defendant at five different addresses, but could not find him that morning or at any time over the next several weeks. The defendant acknowledged that a friend warned him early in the morning of October 21 that the police were looking for him in connection with a homicide, and that he immediately fled to Buffalo, New York. He lived there for approximately six years, using false names and false identification. He then moved to Florida, still using a false name, and he was apprehended there in late 2000.
2. Discussion. a. Evidence of the October 10 and October 17 incidents. The defendant argues that prior bad act evidence concerning the October 10 incident (in which the defendant attempted to shoot Tolentino) and the October 17 incident (in which the defendant, in the presence of Tolentino, slapped Cruz) was erroneously admitted over his objection. "Evidence that has relevance to issues other than bad character or criminal propensity is admissible if not outweighed by its unfair prejudice, which is a determination for the judge to make and one which we do not disturb unless, in our judgment, it is palpably wrong." Commonwealth v. Fordham, 417 Mass. 10, 22 (1994).
With regard to the October 10 incident, the judge allowed the Commonwealth to admit the evidence on the ground that it was probative of the defendant's intent and motive.3 There was no error. Evidence that the defendant attempted to fire a deadly weapon at Tolentino just ten days prior to the actual killing is probative of the defendant's hostile attitude toward Tolentino, his intent to kill Tolentino, and the premeditated nature of the later killing. See Commonwealth v. Squailia, 429 Mass. 101, 105 (1999), and cases cited. Shortly after the introduction of this evidence, the judge instructed the jury that they could not consider such evidence as evidence of bad character or propensity to commit a crime, and that they could consider the evidence solely on the issues of the defendant's motive or intent in connection with the events of October 20. See Commonwealth v. Snell, 428 Mass. 766, 778, cert. denied, 527 U.S. 1010 (1999) ().
As to the October 17 incident, the judge allowed evidence that the defendant kicked open the door of Cruz's apartment, saw Tolentino and Cruz together, and immediately thereafter struck Cruz in the face. The defendant objected to that portion of the evidence that referenced his striking Cruz. Again, the evidence was probative of issues other than the defendant's bad character or criminal propensity. That the defendant hit Cruz on seeing her and Tolentino together in her apartment4 indicated the defendant's disapproval or upset and was highly probative of his motive. See Commonwealth v. Garrey, 436 Mass. 422, 432-433 (2002) (). Immediately following Cruz's testimony concerning the October 17 incident, the judge gave an appropriate limiting instruction concerning the proper use of this evidence. There was no error.
b. Rebuttal evidence. The defendant objected to evidence, offered in rebuttal, of yet another prior bad act, namely, the June 5, 1993, incident in which the defendant had kicked in the door to Cruz's apartment while armed with a gun, and had threatened to kill her if he ever saw her with another man. At trial, the defendant objected on the ground that he was unfairly surprised by the introduction of this evidence. The judge overruled that objection, noting that the Commonwealth had no way of knowing in advance whether the defendant would testify or what he would say, and thus could not anticipate the need for particular rebuttal evidence. He further noted that, because the defendant had been arrested and charged in connection with the June, 1993, incident, and because the Commonwealth had promptly turned over police reports from that incident as soon as it knew the evidence would be offered in rebuttal, there was no unfair surprise. On appeal, the defendant now argues that this evidence was not proper rebuttal. We disagree, and we see no substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice from the admission of this rebuttal evidence.5
On direct examination, the defendant testified that he had no problem with Cruz's seeing another man, that he never kicked down Cruz's door, and that he had no motive to kill Tolentino; he also denied pulling a gun on Tolentino during the October 10 confrontation. On cross-examination, when asked whether he had pulled a gun on Tolentino, the defendant denied that he pulled a gun and then volunteered that he had never pulled or even walked around with a gun. He reiterated that he had never kicked in Cruz's door, because doing so "could have hit her in the face or something." To rebut this testimony, the Commonwealth recalled Cruz. Cruz testified that the defendant, on June 5, 1993, kicked in the door of her apartment after she refused to let him in. She saw a gun in the defendant's pants. Finally, she...
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