Com. v. Bookman

• Decision Date: 30 June 1982
• Citation: 386 Mass. 657,436 N.E.2d 1228
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Bruce BOOKMAN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1228

436 N.E.2d 1228

386 Mass. 657

COMMONWEALTH v. Bruce BOOKMAN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Bristol.

Argued March 2, 1982.

Decided June 30, 1982.

Harry Bello, New Bedford, for defendant.

Lance J. Garth, Asst. Dist. Atty. (Phillip L. Weiner, Asst. Dist. Atty., with him), for the Commonwealth.

Before HENNESSEY, C. J., and LIACOS, ABRAMS, NOLAN and LYNCH, JJ.

LIACOS, Justice.

The defendant was convicted by a jury of manslaughter. He was sentenced to a term of seven to ten years at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Walpole. He appealed. The execution of sentence was stayed by the trial judge, pending the appeal. The appeal is here on our motion. We reverse the judgment of conviction.

The victim, Jesse Aranjo, was found dead in a dugout at Dias Field, New Bedford, in the early afternoon of May 25, 1979. The cause of death was damage to the brain resulting from blunt force injury to the head. An examination of the victim's body revealed additional multiple bruises and abrasions.

The facts relevant to the appeal are these. ¹ Two New Bedford police officers, on the morning following the incident, were instructed by one of their superior officers to pick up the defendant and bring him to the station for questioning. The officers proceeded to the defendant's home where they told the defendant's mother that they wanted to speak with the defendant. When the defendant appeared, the officers asked if he would go with them to the police station. Initially, the defendant made no response, but then asked if a companion, Keith Tavares, could go along. The officers replied that he could, and all four went to the police station.

When they arrived at the police station, the defendant was escorted to an interrogation room where he was advised of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The defendant indicated that he understood his rights and signed a form to that effect, but refused to sign a waiver of his Miranda rights. The defendant was then asked to explain his whereabouts on May 24, 1979. ² The defendant made a statement to the police as follows. At about five or six o'clock on the evening of May 24, the defendant went over to a friend's house where he met Keith and David Tavares. After a while, the three proceeded to a liquor store where Keith purchased beer, vodka, and orange juice. The three young men consumed these beverages in a dugout at Dias Field. According to the officers, Bookman stated that as the three of them left the field, they saw some men approaching, whom they did not know. The three youths returned to their friend's house where they stayed until they took a taxicab home.

At this point, a third police officer entered the interrogation room and advised those present that David Tavares had confessed to the homicide and had implicated Keith Tavares and the defendant Bookman. ³ When the defendant was confronted with this information, he stated that he did not wish to give any further statement and requested an attorney. The defendant made no further statements. ⁴ The defendant argues on appeal that the judge erred in denying his motion to suppress the statements he made at the police station.

The judge found that there was no probable cause to arrest the defendant at the time the police officers went to his home. The judge further found that, prior to the break in questioning, the defendant was not under arrest, in custody, subject to custodial interrogation, or deprived of his freedom in any significant way. The defendant, however, relying primarily on Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), contends that the defendant was, in fact, arrested when the police picked him up and escorted him to the police station.

This case is factually distinguishable from Dunaway v. New York, supra, in one significant detail, viz., the defendant in Dunaway did not voluntarily accompany the detectives to police headquarters. See Dunaway v. New York, supra at 205, 207 & n.6, 99 S.Ct. at 2253. In the case before us there was no testimony in the motion hearing that even alluded to a finding of involuntariness in the defendant's accompanying the police to the station. The judge, in his rulings of law, stated that the defendant "was not forced to accompany the police (to the station) in the first place." The judge's conclusion that the defendant accompanied the officers voluntarily, and not under constraint, is well supported. The detectives asked the defendant if he would accompany them to the police station for questioning relative to the death of a young man in the north end of the city. The defendant and his friend rode in the back seat of the cruiser to the station. The defendant was not handcuffed or restrained in any way but walked into the police station on his own accord. A police officer read to the defendant his Miranda warnings, and the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his rights and proceeded to relate his whereabouts on the evening of May 24, 1979.

We recognize that there is a particular coercive element inherent in an interview at a police station. Commonwealth v. Alicea, 376 Mass. 506, 513, 381 N.E.2d 144 (1978). "Any interview of one suspected of a crime by a police officer will have coercive aspects to it, simply by virtue of the fact that the police officer is part of a law enforcement system which may ultimately cause the suspect to be charged with a crime." Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495, 97 S.Ct. 711, 714, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) (per curiam). Although an interview at an official place intimates a degree of coercion, see Commonwealth v. Haas, 373 Mass. 545, 552, 369 N.E.2d 692 (1977), it does not, in itself, brand an interrogation as custodial. Commonwealth v. Best, --- Mass. ---, ---, Mass.Adv.Sh. (1980) 2039, 2060, 411 N.E.2d 442. The giving of Miranda warnings may be understood as a step taken by the police out of abundant caution to counteract the particularly coercive atmosphere and does not, by itself, establish a custodial interrogation. Commonwealth v. Alicea, supra. We emphasize, however, that "(t)he situation would have been clearer if the officers had told the defendant that he was free to go on his way if he chose." Commonwealth v. Meehan, 377 Mass. 552, 558, 387 N.E.2d 527 (1979). See, e.g., Oregon v. Mathiason, supra, 429 U.S. at 493, 97 S.Ct. at 713; Commonwealth v. Doyle, --- Mass.App. ---, ---, Mass.App.Ct.Adv.Sh. (1981) 2077, 2082, 429 N.E.2d 346. Cf. Commonwealth v. Best, supra --- Mass. at ---, at 2059, 411 N.E.2d 442. The record in this case is totally devoid of any suggestion of coercion by the police or involuntariness on the part of the defendant. Indeed, there is nothing to suggest that the defendant expressed even the slightest reservation about accompanying the officers. Compare Commonwealth v. Haas, supra, 373 Mass. at 549-554, 369 N.E.2d 692; with Commonwealth v. Alicea, supra, 376 Mass. at 508-514, 381 N.E.2d 144 and Commonwealth v. Cruz, 373 Mass. 676, 682-685, 369 N.E.2d 996 (1977). ⁵ There was no error in the denial of the motion to suppress. ⁶

The defendant claims a second error in the trial of his case. The defendant contends that the trial judge erred in admitting certain hearsay statements over his objection. We agree that the admission of hearsay evidence was in error and that the prejudicial impact thereof requires that the defendant be granted a new trial. ⁷

At trial, a witness for the Commonwealth testified that she was unable to recall certain testimony that she had previously given before a grand jury. The judge declared the witness hostile and permitted the prosecutor to read to the jury, as substantive evidence of the defendant's guilt, a portion of the witness's grand jury testimony. ⁸ The testimony read to the jury contained a statement that the defendant made regarding the victim Aranjo: "He said, 'We didn't mean to do it. It was an accident. We didn't know the guy was dead until this news came on.' " The defendant objected to the admission of the evidence on the ground that the evidence was inadmissible hearsay. ⁹ The prosecutor argued, and the judge ruled, that the prior statement of the witness was admissible under the past recollection recorded exception to the hearsay rule. We disagree.

We do not disturb the well-established rule in this Commonwealth that a witness may incorporate past recollection recorded in his testimony, or, in the discretion of the judge, the memorandum may be admitted in evidence as an exception to the hearsay rule. See Commonwealth v. Dougherty, 343 Mass. 299, 306, 178 N.E.2d 584 (1961); Fisher v. Swartz, 333 Mass. 265, 130 N.E.2d 575 (1955); Commonwealth v. Greene, 9 Mass.App. 688, --- - ---, Mass.App.Ct.Adv.Sh. (1980) 925, 925-927, 404 N.E.2d 110. Under this exception to the hearsay rule, where a witness has no revivable recollection of an event, a memorandum recording those events may qualify, providing certain conditions are met, as evidence. See generally 3 J. Wigmore, Evidence §§ 744-755 (Chadbourn rev. 1970). Cf. Fed.R.Evid. 803(5); Proposed Mass.R.Evid. 803(5) (July, 1980). Among the prerequisites of admissibility is the requirement that the witness, having firsthand knowledge of the facts recorded in the memorandum, be able to testify that the memorandum written or observed by him was true at the time it was made. As Wigmore puts it: "If the witness can say, 'I distinctly remember that when I made or saw this memorandum, about the time of the events, I was then conscious of its correctness,' his verification is satisfactory" (emphasis supplied). Wigmore, supra at § 747(2). The requirements of Fed.R.Evid. 803(5) are similar: The memorandum must be "shown to have been made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in his memory and to reflect that knowledge correctly" (emphasis supplied). Our cases seem generally in accord. See, e.g., Parsons v. Manufacturers Ins....