Com. v. Blanchette

• Decision Date: 14 January 1991
• Citation: Com. v. Blanchette, 564 N.E.2d 992, 409 Mass. 99 (Mass. 1991)
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Andrew J. BLANCHETTE.
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 992

564 N.E.2d 992

409 Mass. 99

COMMONWEALTH v. Andrew J. BLANCHETTE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Bristol.

Argued Dec. 3, 1990.

Decided Jan. 14, 1991.

Francis M. O'Boy, Taunton, for defendant.

Cynthia A. Vincent, Asst. Dist. Atty., for Com.

Before LIACOS, C.J., and ABRAMS, NOLAN, O'CONNOR and GREANEY, JJ.

NOLAN, Justice.

The defendant, Andrew J. Blanchette, was indicted for murder in the first degree on April 7, 1981. Prior to trial, he was committed to Bridgewater State Hospital (Bridgewater), pursuant to G.L. c. 123, §§ 15, 18 (1988 ed.). After a hearing, the trial judge ruled that the defendant was competent to stand trial. On December 7, 1983, the defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to the mandatory life imprisonment at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction. He was transferred to Bridgewater under G.L. c. 123, § 18 (1988 ed.), where he has remained until the present date.

On December 30, 1983, the defendant filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied. On October 16, 1984, he filed a notice of appeal from the denial of his motion for a new trial. On October 19, 1984, the defendant filed a notice of appeal from his conviction. On November 21, 1986, the case was entered in this court. ¹ We now affirm the conviction of murder in the first degree.

From the evidence at trial, the jury were warranted in finding the following facts. At 7:45 P.M. on February 21, 1981, the defendant's brother, Eugene Blanchette, notified the Attleboro police department that his mother, Emelia Blanchette (the victim), was missing from her home at 138 Knight Avenue. Eugene Blanchette's daughter had spoken with her on the telephone at approximately 2 or 2:30 P.M. on that day. Of the people who testified, she was the last to speak to the victim. Eugene Blanchette testified that he had last seen his brother at 6:15 P.M. that day as the defendant left 138 Knight Avenue. That evening, Eugene Blanchette and others searched 138 Knight Avenue for Emelia Blanchette. They did not find her.

At 7:30 the next morning, Attleboro police officers arrived at the Blanchette home and searched for the victim. One officer searched the victim's bedroom, including the closet. The room was in "shambles" and was also "unreasonably warm." The bedroom had a closet which was stacked three feet high with a pile of clothing, fabric, and yarn. The officers testified that none of them noticed the characteristic odor associated with a dead body. Later that day, at about 1:30 P.M., a detective noticed a hand protruding from the pile of clothing. The body of Emelia Blanchette was found underneath the pile of clothing.

The victim was found with a gag in her mouth and several nylon stockings tied in knots around her neck. The victim's face was bloody and swollen. There were massive injuries to the face and head. An autopsy was performed and the cause of death was determined to be massive injuries to the head and asphyxiation due to strangulation. Although the time of death was contested at trial, there was evidence from which the jury could find that the time of death was approximately 3 P.M. on February 21, 1981.

At about 7:30 A.M. on February 22, 1981, Attleboro police officers found the defendant, Andrew Blanchette, near a wooded swamp about one and one-half miles from the victim's home. The officers asked the defendant when he had last seen his mother. At first, he said he had not seen her in three days. Later he said he had not seen her since Friday, two days earlier. The defendant was asked where his mother might be, to which he responded, "I didn't do anything wrong. I've been good." Although the defendant lived with his mother at 138 Knight Avenue, the defendant told the officers he had spent the night in the woods. The defendant, a diabetic, had syringes in his possession. He was placed in custody and charged with illegal possession of hypodermic needles and syringes. The defendant was arrested and brought to the station. Upon an inventory of the defendant's belongings, the police found a key chain with a red garnet ring on it which belonged to the victim. The victim wore the ring every day. Also taken from the defendant were several articles of clothing which were then sent to the State laboratory for analysis. The test results indicated that there was blood present on some of the articles of clothing.

Further evidence included the following two admissions by the defendant. On February 7, 1982, the defendant wrote a letter to his uncle, Andrew Nyzio, in which he confessed to the murder. ² In the letter, the defendant also boasted that he could "buy and sell" his uncle, threatened his uncle that his motorcycle friends would pick the defendant up in the defendant's Lincoln Continental automobile and that then he would kill every one of the Nyzios. The first page of the letter also had a number of swastikas drawn on it.

The defendant also admitted the crime to a witness who testified that he had visited the defendant at Bridgewater. The witness, John Governo, testified that during a May, 1982, visit the defendant related that he had killed his mother. The defendant stated that she had yelled at him for using the telephone and that he had "just smacked her" and then kept hitting her. He also stated that he should have killed her years ago.

Prior to trial, the defendant filed notice of an insanity defense pursuant to the Mass.R.Crim.P. 14(b)(2), 378 Mass. 874 (1979). A forensic psychiatrist evaluated the defendant at the request of the Commonwealth. He testified that the defendant suffered from schizophrenia, but that this disease on February 21, 1981, did not impair him to such a degree that he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his behavior or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.

The defendant raises several issues on this appeal: (1) the judge failed to instruct the jury properly that they could consider the defendant's mental condition on the issue of premeditation; (2) the judge's instruction on the presumption of innocence erroneously stated that the presumption lasted only until the start of the trial; (3) the admissions he made in a letter to his uncle and to a visitor at Bridgewater were erroneously admitted because they were not the products of a rational mind and, thus, involuntary; (4) the judge should have granted his motion for a bifurcated trial on the insanity and guilt issues; (5) the judge should have instructed the jury on the consequence of a not guilty verdict, namely that the defendant could be subject to civil commitment on such a verdict; and (6) the defendant asks this court to grant a new trial under our power pursuant to G.L. c. 278, § 33E (1988 ed.). We find no merit in any of the defendant's claims and accordingly affirm the conviction. We shall discuss each of the issues in turn.

1. Deliberate premeditation. The defendant argues that the judge failed properly to instruct the jury on the effect of the defendant's mental condition on the issue of deliberate premeditation. He argues that the judge should have instructed the jury on the difference between the degree of mental illness required to find lack of criminal responsibility and that required to allow them to find that the illness affected deliberate premeditation. We find no error. The judge adequately instructed the jury on the issue of the relationship between the defendant's diminished mental capacity and first and second degree murder, independent of the issue of legal insanity.

In Commonwealth v. McHoul, 352 Mass. 544, 547, 226 N.E.2d 556 (1967), we determined the definition of legal insanity to be a lack of "substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality [wrongfulness] of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law." In Commonwealth v. Gould, 380 Mass. 672, 405 N.E.2d 927 (1980), we decided that evidence of a defendant's mental illness could be properly considered, not just on the issue of criminal responsibility under McHoul, but also on how the mental illness may have affected deliberate premeditation. The defendant contends that the instructions to the jury did not adequately separate these two different standards.

"[T]he adequacy of instructions must be determined in light of their over-all impact on the jury." Commonwealth v. Sellon, 380 Mass. 220, 231-232, 402 N.E.2d 1329 (1980). In its entirety, the judge's charge adequately instructed the jury of the impact of the mental illness, first on whether there was criminal responsibility under the standard set forth in McHoul, and second, the impact that mental illness would have on forming the requisite intent under Gould.

First, the judge instructed the jury on the McHoul standard. During the course of the instructions, he set forth the McHoul standard four times and explained to the jury that this was the test they should use to determine whether the defendant was sane at the time he committed the crime. The judge then instructed the jury that the mental illness could also have an impact on whether the defendant was capable of deliberate premeditation. The judge stated: "In order for you to find the defendant guilty of first degree murder you must find that he has the mental capacity to commit all of the elements of the crime for first degree murder, which include the essential elements of deliberate premeditation, which I have described to you at the beginning of this instruction and which is essential for first degree murder. In other words, the defendant's illness must be considered on the issue of deliberate premeditation since that bears upon the requirements for first degree murder." ³

We conclude that, taken as a whole, the instructions to the jury adequately informed them of the difference between the McHoul standard on legal insanity and the impact of mental illness on deliberate premeditation under Gould. There was no error.

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