Com. v. Cole

• Citation: 402 N.E.2d 55,380 Mass. 30
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. William A. COLE.
• Decision Date: 05 March 1980
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 55

402 N.E.2d 55

380 Mass. 30

COMMONWEALTH v. William A. COLE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

Argued Nov. 6, 1979.

Decided March 5, 1980.

John F. Donahue, Springfield, for defendant.

Dianne M. Dillon, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Before HENNESSEY, C. J., and QUIRICO, KAPLAN, WILKINS and ABRAMS, JJ.

ABRAMS, Justice.

After the lunch break at the American Bosch Company's plant on October 10, 1977, William Cole fatally shot Thomas Coppola. Cole then chased Joaquim Goncalves, shot Goncalves twice, and when Cole's rifle misfired on the third shot aimed at Goncalves, Cole struck Goncalves on the head with the butt of the rifle. Coppola was Cole's general supervisor; Goncalves was Cole's foreman. At trial the sole issue was Cole's criminal responsibility. After fifteen hours of deliberation, a jury found Cole criminally responsible by convicting him of three criminal charges: murder in the first degree, armed assault with intent to murder and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. ¹ Cole appeals. See G.L. c. 278, §§ 33A-33G.

Cole claims that the trial judge erred in denying his motions for directed verdicts and motions for a new trial. ² We find no error in the denial of Cole's motions. Cole also asks us to exercise our power under G.L. c. 278, § 33E, because the verdicts are against the weight of the evidence. We do not consider this argument because we reverse pursuant to our plenary review power under § 33E for an error of law: the psychiatric evidence placed in issue the voluntariness of Cole's confession, and the judge failed to instruct the jury on that issue. See Commonwealth v. Chung, --- Mass. ---, --- - --- ^a, 392 N.E.2d 1015 (1979). Cf. Commonwealth v. Alicea, --- Mass. ---, --- ^b, 381 N.E.2d 144 (1978).

The Commonwealth's evidence showed that sometime before 11 A.M. Cole told a fellow worker that he was going to kill Goncalves and Coppola. At that time Cole was "shaking." ³ Cole then left the plant and returned around 11:30 A.M., leaving his car double parked outside. Cole entered the plant, approached Goncalves, and asked for a meeting with him (Goncalves) and Coppola. Cole's speech was clear, but he was "not calm." Goncalves was unable to arrange an immediate meeting and Cole walked off. Shortly thereafter Cole reentered the plant, armed with a .22 caliber rifle. The men in the shop stopped working to see what, if anything, would happen. Cole walked up to the spot where Coppola and Goncalves were working and said to them, "I'm going to kill you two guys."

Ronald Roux, who was running a nearby machine, started to move away, but Cole said very calmly, "Get back to your machine, I don't want no trouble with you." Michael Swiatlowski, who had been standing next to his machine alongside Coppola and Goncalves, started to run away, but Cole also told him to stay put: "Don't you go anywhere. I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at these two guys."

From where he stood, Swiatlowski heard Cole say, "I'm going to kill you (Coppola) first, then I'm going to kill Jack (Goncalves) second. . . ." "I've got enough of you. I think I'm going to shoot you. So I'll shoot you now." Cole told Coppola and Goncalves: "You gave me a hard time this morning, I'm going to give you a hard time now." Cole refused to put the gun away, because he said they (Coppola and Goncalves) would "fire him." Coppola then demanded that Cole give him the rifle and stepped toward Cole to try to disarm him. At that time, Cole fired the rifle, thereby slaying Coppola.

Goncalves ran out a nearby alley door, pursued by Cole. Cole followed Goncalves down the alley, firing at him as he ran back into the plant. Cole continued to chase Goncalves. Once inside the plant, Goncalves kept running, telling people to call the guards. Cole fired at him again, and Goncalves fell to the floor. Cole put the gun to Goncalves' heart and fired, but Goncalves twisted away so that the bullet entered through the abdomen instead. The gun jammed when Cole tried to fire a third time, and Cole then smashed the butt of the rifle into Goncalves' skull.

The Springfield police ⁴ arrived at the Bosch plant at approximately noon. They found the defendant standing with the gun pointed to his chest, his finger on the trigger. ⁵ Cole did not surrender the weapon until he arrived at the police station. The jury heard a tape recording of the Springfield police reading Cole the Miranda warnings, which took place at the station. Cole responded to the warnings by requesting a lawyer so that "everything will be nice and legal." When the police then asked if Cole wanted to "tell (his) story," Cole replied, "No, do you want to go by the law?" Cole then asked for a public defender because he couldn't afford a lawyer. Cole was booked and gave responsive answers to the usual booking questions, such as name, address, age, height, eye and hair color.

After being taken into custody by the Chicopee police, Cole was again read the Miranda warnings. Cole signed a Miranda card and then told police that he had "shot both persons." He had started to give the police a formal statement when defense counsel called the station and the interview stopped. ⁶ The police testified that the defendant's behavior and physical appearance seemed normal, that his speech was not impaired, and that he appeared to understand and respond to what was being said to him. The officers testified that Cole did not appear confused or unsteady in any way.

During the Commonwealth's case, the evidence showed that Cole and Goncalves had a series of disagreements over the number of machines Cole could operate simultaneously. Goncalves, as Cole's foreman, ⁷ had restricted Cole to operating the machines separately. Since salaries were computed on a piecework basis, Cole thereby sustained a substantial loss in pay.

On October 5, 1977, Cole had a dispute with Goncalves and Coppola over the quality of Cole's work. Cole worked only a half day the following day, a Thursday, and he did not report for work at all on Friday.

At the close of the Commonwealth's case, the defendant filed motions for directed verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity. The motions were denied and exceptions taken.

The defense. The heart of the defense was the presentation of three medical experts who all testified that the defendant was not criminally responsible for his conduct on October 10, 1977.

On October 11, 1977, Cole was arraigned at Chicopee District Court. The District Court judge ordered an immediate psychiatric examination pursuant to G.L. c. 123, § 15(a), which was performed on October 11, 1977, by the court psychiatrist. The court psychiatrist found Cole competent to stand trial, but he questioned Cole's criminal responsibility. Cole was thereafter committed to Bridgewater State Hospital for further psychiatric observation and examination.

Twenty-eight days after Cole's arrival at Bridgewater, Dr. Stephen G. Cronin, who was then director of forensic services at Bridgewater, conducted a competency and criminal responsibility examination. Based on what Cole told him, Cronin determined that Cole was not competent to stand trial and that Cole was not criminally responsible for the crimes. He diagnosed Cole's mental illness as either a psychotic depressive reaction or a schizo-affective reaction with paranoid thinking. At trial Cronin testified that Cole's behavior "was entirely consistent with an acute psychotic episode" suffered on the day of the crime.

Dr. Daniel M. Weiss testified that in his opinion the defendant lacked criminal responsibility because of an acute psychotic reaction which had since subsided, and that as a result of this psychosis, the defendant had little or no memory of the events of October 10, 1977. Dr. Weiss did not examine the defendant until September 8, 1978, when he interviewed him for approximately one hour; he saw Cole again on November 10, 1978. ⁸ He testified that his opinion was based on information Cole had given him in those two interviews, on the grand jury statements of some witnesses and on the Bridgewater reports. A third doctor also testified that in his opinion Cole lacked criminal responsibility for the crimes.

Additionally, there was evidence of labor unrest in Cole's department at American Bosch. The defense elicited evidence, which, if believed, permitted the jury to find that Goncalves discriminated against blacks and that he discriminated against Cole, who is black, in particular. A number of workers told of Cole's anger and frustration over alleged mistreatment by Goncalves and Coppola. The defense also presented evidence that from the time Cole's first wife died in 1973, Cole was nervous, depressed, anxious and had health problems.

1. Denial of motions for directed verdicts. In alleging that the judge erred in denying the defendant's motions for directed verdicts, made at the close of the Commonwealth's case and renewed after the defense rested, the defendant asks us to reconsider our previous rulings on the issue of a directed verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity if the Commonwealth fails to produce expert testimony on the issue of criminal responsibility. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Kostka, 370 Mass. 516, 350 N.E.2d 444 (1976); Commonwealth v. Smith, 357 Mass. 168, 258 N.E.2d 13 (1970); Commonwealth v. Cox, 327 Mass. 609, 100 N.E.2d 14 (1951). We most recently considered this issue in Commonwealth v. O'Brien, --- Mass. ---, --- - --- ^c, 388 N.E.2d 658 (1979), and there declined to abandon this rule. We see no reason to reconsider our decision.

The Commonwealth's evidence of sanity came from the witnesses at the scene of the crime and from the police. The evidence warranted a jury in finding that Cole deliberately and with premeditation shot the two men. The evidence also warranted a jury in finding that at the time of the crime Cole was able to converse clearly and was oriented as to time, place and persons. Cole was able to...