Com. v. Cain

• Citation: 361 Mass. 224,279 N.E.2d 706
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. John C. CAIN.
• Decision Date: 24 February 1972
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 706

279 N.E.2d 706

361 Mass. 224

COMMONWEALTH v. John C. CAIN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Argued Nov. 1, 1971.

Decided Feb. 24, 1972.

Albert L. Hutton, Jr., Boston, for defendant.

Terence M. Troyer, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Before TAURO, C.J., and REARDON, QUIRICO, BRAUCHER and HENNESSEY, JJ.

TAURO, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal under the provisions of G.L. c. 278, §§ 33A--33G, as amended. The defendant, a minor, was convicted on November 7, 1969, of the carnal abuse of a child and committed, under G.L. c. 123A, to the treatment center at the Correctional Institution at Bridgewater for observation and treatment. Subsequently, after a hearing on July 9, 1970, the judge found the defendant to be a sexually dangerous person, and in lieu of sentence, ordered him committed pursuant to the statutory provisions (G.L. 123A, § 5) to the treatment center at the Correctional Institution at Bridgewater for an indeterminate period.

The offence involved in this case occurred on May 6, 1969. The victim of the alleged assault, then seven years old, was playing with her younger sister and a five year old girl in the backyard of a residence in Burlington. A boy described as having been thirteen, fourteen, or possibly fifteen years of age, around five feet six inches tall, with dark hair and glasses, approached from the woods behind the yard, beckoned the victim over, and sexually assaulted her. The defendant at the time of the incident was fifteen years old and otherwise fitted the description of the assailant. Four days later, the defendant was arrested and taken to the Burlington police station and, after an interview with the police, he was charged with the offence. He was indicted and brought to trial in the Superior Court.

The defendant urges as error the ruling of the judge, after a voir dire hearing, that the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his Miranda rights, and that an inculpatory statement by him to police during an in-custody interrogation was admissible evidence. The following evidence presented at the voir dire and at trial bears upon this contention.

Lieutenant Arnold R. Christiansen and Detective Gerald Crocker of the Burlington police placed the defendant under arrest at his house on May 10, 1969, and proceeded to take him by police cruiser to the Burlington police station. Detective Crocker testified that he thought the defendant was fifteen or sixteen years old; that his parents were not at home at the time of the arrest; and that Lieutenant Christiansen radioed the police station to have a cruiser sent to notify the defendant's mother and father who, they were told, were shopping at a market.

Detective Crocker's testimony was that the police advised the defendant of his rights on two occasions: in the cruiser en route to the police station and in a basement office at the police station. ¹ According to Detective Crocker, on the first occasion when the defendant was asked if he understood the warning, the defendant did not speak but 'nodded his head' affirmatively. In Lieutenant Christiansen's version, the defendant was asked 'whether or not he would waive the rights, and he stated yes; and he further stated that, 'I didn't do anything. " As to the second warning, Detective Crocker testified that this time Lieutenant Christiansen was not present. According to Detective Crocker, he asked the defendant, 'Understanding these rights, do you wish to talk to us now?' and the defendant answered, 'Yes,' and 'I didn't do anything.' Relative to events at the station, the defendant testified that he had never been arrested before; that he was unfamiliar with police practices and criminal rights; that he was 'frightened . . . confused . . . (and) didn't know what was happening'; and that he remembered being given a warning only at the police station and not in the cruiser. Detective Crocker in his testimony agreed that the defendant was in a 'frightened' state of mind, and he also stated that 'everything was fast-moving' at the police station.

According to Detective Crocker, when Lieutenant Christiansen came to the office, Detective Crocker went upstairs to the desk where he saw a man who he assumed was the defendant's father, but he did not communicate with the man, and within two or three minutes he returned to the basement office. Lieutenant Christiansen testified that he questioned the defendant and that, at some point, before or after Detective Crocker's return, he asked the defendant, 'Is this the first time that you have ever done anything like this?' To this question the defendant replied, '(t)his is the first time . . .. I have never done it before . . . do I have to go to court?' Detective Crocker testified that he overheard the inculpatory statement, but in his version, the defendant said, 'I did it. What's going to happen to me now?' The testimony of both officers indicates that the defendant's father was upstairs in the police station while Lieutenant Christiansen was questioning the defendant, but that the father was not permitted to see his son until after the alleged statement. The father himself testified that, although he asked repeatedly to see his boy, he had to wait from fifteen to twenty minutes before being brought to the basement office. Neither at voir dire nor at trial was any written notation produced of the defendant's alleged waiver or of his alleged statement.

In the circumstances of this case, we conclude that the Commonwealth has not sustained the burden of establishing that the defendant made a knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights required before police may conduct an in-custody interrogation without the presence of counsel. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 475, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694. Commonwealth v. McKenna, 355 Mass. 313, 323, 244 N.E.2d 560. Commonwealth v. Murray, Mass., 269 N.E.2d 641. ^a Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States as applied to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. "(C)ourts indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver' of fundamental constitutional rights.' Jonhnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461. 'When inculpatory statements made by a defendant in circumstances such as in the present case are offered in evidence against him, 'a heavy burden rests on the . . . (prosecution) to demonstrate that the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to retained or appointed counsel.' Miranda v. Arizona, supra, (384 U.S.) at 475, 86 S.Ct. (1602) at 1628.' Commonwealth v. Murray, supra, at 644 of 269 N.E.2d. When as here, the defendant is a fifteen year old minor, courts proceed with 'special caution.' In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 45. Williams v. Peyton, 404 F.2d 528, 530--531 (4th Cir.). See Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 599--600, 68 S.Ct. 302, 92 L.Ed. 224; Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U.S. 49, 54--55, 82 S.Ct. 1209, 8 L.Ed.2d 325.

We cannot say in the totality of circumstances present in this case that the Commonwealth has sustained this burden. Neither officer who interrogated the defendant made a written notation ² of the defendant's responses to the first or to the second Miranda warning, and there was conflicting testimony as to their nature. Assuming arguendo that, on either or both occasions, the defendant was asked in a straightforward manner whether he waived his rights, and he answered, 'Yes. I didn't do anything,' we cannot agree that this response evinces with sufficient clarity an understanding by the defendant of his fundamental rights and an intelligent waiver of those rights. See Commonwealth v. Guillory, 356 Mass. 591, 593, 254 N.E.2d 427. The mere fact that, subsequently under interrogation, the...