Com. v. Burns
Citation | 388 Mass. 178,445 N.E.2d 613 |
Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. William C. BURNS. |
Decision Date | 15 February 1983 |
Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Milly Whatley, Boston, for defendant.
Joseph C. McGinn, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.
Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and LIACOS, ABRAMS, NOLAN and LYNCH, JJ.
Following his conviction 1 on a complaint for receiving stolen goods, William C. Burns appealed, alleging error in the judge's instructions to the jury. The Appeals Court affirmed the judgment. See Commonwealth v. Burns, 13 Mass.App. 1011, 433 N.E.2d 481 (1982). We granted the defendant's application for further appellate review. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
We summarize the facts. Early in the evening of June 30, 1980, a police officer observed the defendant standing on a sidewalk next to an automobile belonging to Roger Supernot, the codefendant at the trial. 2 The defendant was holding a leather coat and offering it to passersby. The police followed the two men, who traveled in Supernot's automobile to a nearby pool hall. While Burns waited, Supernot brought a man out from the pool hall. Burns got out of the automobile, opened the trunk, and took out a leather coat, which the man tried on. The man handed money to Burns, who shared it with Supernot. After observing the transaction, the police followed the three men back into the pool hall and asked them to step outside. Burns told the police that he had purchased the coats from a Vermont salvage dealer. Burns also said that he did not have receipts for the coats, but that he could get them.
The police inspected the two coats in the trunk of Supernot's automobile, and the coat the man was wearing. 3 None of the coats had store tags, but all carried the brand name "Reed's Sportswear." Since the police had no knowledge that any coats had been reported stolen at that time, they let the men return to the pool hall, while they kept the automobile under surveillance.
Some time later, the police discovered that late in the evening of June 29, or early in the morning of June 30, 1980, leather coats had been stolen from Eddy's department store. Based on this information, the police stopped Burns and Supernot after they left the pool hall and asked to see the coats. The two men again showed the coats to the police. The defendant repeated that the coats were purchased from a Vermont salvage dealer.
The police took the two coats from the trunk and the coat that the man had purchased 4 to Eddy's for identification. At Eddy's, the police spoke with the owner of Eddy's and its buyer. All of the leather coats sold by Eddy's were marked on the left sleeve with a letter "E," which was visible only under a blue light. All three coats taken by the police bore the letter "E." The store's records permitted an inference that the coats in the defendant's possession were some of the recently stolen coats rather than coats which had been sold earlier that year. At the close of the Commonwealth's case, the defense rested.
The judge instructed the jury that the Commonwealth carries the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt on all elements of the offense of receiving stolen goods, including the element of knowledge that the goods were stolen. The defendant challenges another part of the instructions which reads: The defendant objected to the instructions. 5 In response, the judge gave supplemental instructions in which he said, "[T]he burden of proof is always on the Commonwealth, and the exact language that our Supreme Court has used concerning the question of the effect of possession of recently stolen merchandise is this: The rule is that, 'Possession of recently stolen property puts the burden of explanation upon one charged with having stolen it or with having received the property, knowing it to have been stolen.' That's the exact language.
The defendant does not dispute the fact that the judge instructed the jury that the Commonwealth has the burden of proving each element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Rather, he claims that this instruction was, in effect, negated by the judge's instruction that the defendant had a duty to explain his possession of recently stolen goods. He claims that the instructions as given are improper because they require him to explain his possession of the coats, and thus shift the burden of proof on the issue of knowledge to him.
Relying on Barnes v. United States, 412 U.S. 837, 93 S.Ct. 2357, 37 L.Ed.2d 380 (1973), the Commonwealth claims that there is no error in the judge's instructions. In Barnes, the United States Supreme Court approved jury instructions for possession of stolen property, which permitted the jury to draw an inference from the possession of recently stolen property "unless such possession is explained by facts and circumstances in this case which are in some way consistent with the defendant's innocence." Id. at 840 n. 3, 93 S.Ct. at 2360 n. 3. Although the Barnes Court recognized that the instructions at issue there had the "practical effect ... [of shifting] the burden of going forward with evidence to the defendant," id. at 846 n. 11, 93 S.Ct. at 2363 n. 11, that instruction did not explicitly place the burden of explanation on the defendant.
In light of In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970); Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), and Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), 6 we believe that an extension of the holding in Barnes to an instruction explicitly requiring a defendant to justify his possession of the goods is inappropriate. 7 These Federal cases place on the Commonwealth the burden of proving all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The issue of knowledge is an essential element of the crime. Commonwealth v. Munoz, --- Mass. ---, ---, Mass.Adv.Sh. (1981) 2098, 3002, 426 N.E.2d 1161.
There is no dispute that a rational inference of guilty knowledge may be drawn from the facts and circumstances, including the defendant's possession of recently stolen goods. Since knowledge is an essential element of the crime, it must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. 9 See Commonwealth v. Sandler, 368 Mass. 729, 741, 335 N.E.2d 903 (1975); Commonwealth v. Kelley, 333 Mass. 191, 195, 129 N.E.2d 900 (1955). By discussing...
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