Com. v. Collins

• Decision Date: 29 April 1982
• Citation: 434 N.E.2d 964,386 Mass. 1
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Vincent Francis COLLINS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 964

434 N.E.2d 964

386 Mass. 1

COMMONWEALTH v. Vincent Francis COLLINS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

Argued Dec. 8, 1981.

Decided April 29, 1982.

Steven J. Rappaport, Boston, for defendant.

John T. McDonough, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Before HENNESSEY, C. J., and WILKINS, LIACOS, LYNCH and O'CONNOR, JJ.

LIACOS, Justice.

On April 28, 1976, a Hampden County jury convicted the defendant of robbery and murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of life imprisonment, and his claim of appeal was entered on April 29, 1976. Subsequently, the defendant's appointed trial counsel was replaced by a succession of three appointed counsel, the first two of whom in turn filed motions for a new trial. The second motion was heard in June, 1979. Prior to that, the defendant's appeal of his convictions had been ordered dismissed, for want of prosecution, by a judge of the Superior Court. G.L. c. 278, § 33F, repealed by St.1979, c. 346, § 3.

The motion for a new trial was denied on January 2, 1980, whereupon the defendant filed a notice of appeal. The matter was entered in the Appeals Court. Subsequently, the defendant's third and present posttrial counsel filed a motion in the Superior Court to vacate the order dismissing the appeal of the convictions. The motion was granted on May 20, 1981. This appeal was also docketed in the Appeals Court. We ordered the appeals both from the denial of the motion for a new trial and from the convictions transferred to this court.

Since the defendant has never had an appeal from his convictions, both appeals are properly before us. G.L. c. 278, § 33E. Commonwealth v. Bertrand, 385 Mass. 356, 432 N.E.2d 78 (1982). Both appeals raise the same issue-whether the Commonwealth improperly suppressed evidence of an arrangement with the key witness against the defendant at trial. We have reviewed the entire record of the defendant's trial as well as the transcripts and exhibits from the motion for a new trial. We conclude that the conviction must be reversed.

There was evidence of the following facts. In the early morning hours of July 9, 1975, a gasoline service station in Springfield was robbed. The attendant was shot to death. A Springfield police officer, responding to a call at 5:45 A.M., arrived at the station shortly thereafter and found the body of the victim, Jeffrey McCarl. The victim had been killed by two gunshot wounds to the back of his head. Bullet fragments recovered from his body and cartridge casings found nearby indicated that the murder weapon was a .22 caliber firearm. The cash register had been robbed of approximately $147, and the victim's wallet was missing.

Some weeks later, a patient in the Central State Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, one Samuel Hunt, advised police in that city that he desired to confess a crime. On August 3, 1975, in the presence of two homicide detectives, Hunt, who was nineteen years old at the time, made a written confession. In it he recited, with marked familiarity, the details of the robbery and murder in Springfield. According to this confession, Hunt was the sole perpetrator of the crime.

Hunt was returned to Massachusetts by two Springfield detectives. When he arrived, he was brought to the gasoline station, where he re-created the crime for the officers. On August 5, 1975, he gave Springfield police a second written confession, which included details of the crime similar to those in the first statement. As in the earlier document, Hunt made no mention of any other person being involved.

Hunt was indicted and sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for observation. G.L. c. 123, § 15(b ). In October, 1975, Hunt, acting under what he claimed was divine guidance, implicated the defendant Collins. This was the first knowledge that Springfield authorities had of the involvement of any person other than Hunt in the events of July 9. The defendant was indicted shortly thereafter.

Hunt was the key prosecution witness at the defendant's trial. The prosecutor informed the jury in his opening remarks that "we will have Mr. Hunt here to testify. I will tell you now that he is a co-defendant and he faces similar charges that are here being faced by Mr. Collins. They are not, and the evidence will show, that they have not been disposed of at this point." When Hunt was called, the judge held a voir dire on the question of his waiver of the right against self-incrimination. Hunt was questioned by both his special counsel and the judge. ¹ Hunt claimed that he had made no arrangements with the prosecutor in return for his testimony. Furthermore, he stated he understood that, by his testimony at trial, he was exposing himself to an almost certain conviction of murder in the first degree. He was then allowed to give testimony before the jury.

In response to one of the first questions put to him before the jury, Hunt denied having had any prior discussion of the case with the assistant district attorney, Mr. Gibbons. He testified that on July 7, 1975, he had been hitchhiking outside Nashville, Tennessee, when the defendant stopped and picked him up. The defendant was driving a yellow Datsun truck at the time. The two drove northeast, stopping first in Connecticut. From there they drove to Springfield and stopped near the service station at approximately 4:30 A.M. on July 9.

Hunt testified that the two alighted from the truck and walked toward the station while the defendant tucked a gun in his belt. From that point Hunt's trial testimony tracked his confessions except, of course, that his role of observer now overshadowed that of participant. In all accounts, what transpired was the cold-blooded execution of a nonresisting robbery victim. In Hunt's account at trial, Collins murdered the attendant after relieving him of the keys to the cash register. Hunt claimed that before the killing, he took the wallet from the victim at the defendant's direction. ²

The two men remained in Springfield for one night and then drove to Provincetown. ³ From there, in the company of a woman they had recently met, they drove to Vermont, where the truck broke down in the early morning hours of July 12. A Vermont State trooper came upon the defendant while investigating a report of a disabled vehicle. After running a check on him on the National Crime Information Center computer, the officer arrested him on an outstanding warrant. ⁴ Hunt was brought to the station for investigation, but was released shortly thereafter. He returned to Louisville.

On cross-examination Hunt admitted making the two written confessions, which he claimed were lies. ⁵ At the same time he denied that his testimony against the defendant was given in exchange for leniency, although he admitted he hoped to receive lighter treatment.

The defendant called a witness who testified to Hunt's bias against the defendant. This same witness testified in voir dire that Hunt had told him he expected a lighter sentence in return for his testimony. ⁶ The defendant did not testify.

In his closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury that "(o)ne of the items (defendant's counsel) brought out was that Mr. Hunt has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is expecting some break. I can assure you from the testimony that Mr. Hunt has given in this case, I don't know what type of consideration that the Commonwealth could extend to him, but he is going to have to face the full impact of the law just on the testimony he has given here before you. And so there is nothing, nothing that I can do for him or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts can do for him. He is going to have to face the music. He has got to face a trial for this just as Mr. Collins has."

Subsequent to the defendant's conviction, Hunt offered to plead guilty to murder in the second degree. At a hearing on the matter, the judge asked whether any promises or offers of rewards had been made to Hunt for his plea. In response, the district attorney stated, "Your Honor, may the record indicate, of course from time to time, both Mr. Gibbons and I had suggested to Mr. Gordon (Hunt's special counsel) and also to the previous counsel (Mr. Hurley) that we would entertain a plea to second degree murder and reduce it from first to second; that is the only promise that was made." The plea was accepted, and the district attorney requested that the court recommend incarceration somewhere other than the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Walpole, where Collins was confined.

Three months later Hunt's guilty plea was retracted. However, on November 10, 1976, Hunt again pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree. The plea was once again accepted and the district attorney requested that, out of appreciation for Hunt's testimony, any sentence imposed for the robbery be made concurrent with the sentence for murder. ⁷

In June, 1979, Hunt testified at a hearing on Collins's motion for a new trial. He recanted his trial testimony and claimed that Collins was neither involved in the crime nor anywhere near the scene. Once again, he claimed sole responsibility for the robbery and the murder. Mr. Edward N. Hurley was called. He had represented Hunt in regard to the indictments which charged Hunt with murder in the first degree and armed robbery. On or about August 9, 1975, Mr. Hurley had spoken with the district attorney about a possible plea. At a time before his office was aware of Collins's alleged involvement, the district attorney informed Mr. Hurley that he would recommend a second degree murder sentence in exchange for a plea by Hunt. Mr. Hurley had made this fact known to Hunt. ⁸ In October, Mr. Hurley had attempted to negotiate a manslaughter plea in exchange for "an additional phase of the case uncovered," but the district attorney had refused to consider a lower plea. Despite this, Hunt met with Springfield detectives that month and implicated Collins.

When the closing remarks of ...