Com. v. Crawford

Decision Date25 February 1999
PartiesCOMMONWEALTH v. Latasha CRAWFORD.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Charles W. Rankin, Boston, for the defendant.

Paul B. Linn, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Present: WILKINS, C.J., LYNCH, FRIED, MARSHALL, & IRELAND, JJ.

MARSHALL, J.

In September, 1991, a Suffolk County grand jury returned an indictment charging the defendant, Latasha Crawford, with the murder of Nathaniel Mason Jones. In July, 1992, after hearing four hours of evidence, a jury convicted her of murder in the first degree on a theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty. 1 G.L. c. 265, § 1. Crawford was not the shooter of the victim: the Commonwealth proceeded against her as a joint venturer. 2

Crawford claims error on multiple grounds. Among these are her claim that it was error for the trial judge to refuse to allow her to present expert testimony, both at a hearing on her motion to suppress and at trial, that a statement she gave after she was arrested and in response to questioning by the police was not voluntary because she was a battered woman traumatized by beatings by the victim, and was also suffering the effects of alcohol and drug use when she made the statement. Because her statement was the only inculpatory evidence against her, Crawford argues, the error was prejudicial.

We conclude that the judge should have permitted Crawford's expert to testify at the hearing on the motion to suppress. Moreover, the judge should not have barred that testimony at trial on the issue of the voluntariness of the defendant's statement. We reverse the conviction, and remand the case to the Superior Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion. In light of our decision, we need not address each of Crawford's arguments raised on appeal because they concern matters not likely to arise on retrial. 3 We comment, however, on Crawford's attack on the bill of particulars.

1. On July 19, 1991, Boston police responded to a report of shots being fired at 183 Magnolia Street in the Roxbury section of Boston. The first officer on the scene was directed to the victim by Shaun Jones, in whose apartment the shooting took place. 4 The victim was still alive but unconscious. 5 He had wounds to his head and legs. At trial, the medical examiner testified that the victim died of a gunshot wound to the head--the only gunshot wound he identified.

Shaun Jones told the police that the victim had been shot by "several black males," and that, after the shooting, he had heard a female voice saying something like, "Come on, come on, let's go." Shaun Jones gave the police the name of the defendant as the victim's girl friend. Five days later the defendant was arrested. After receiving the Miranda warnings, she was questioned by the police.

In response, Crawford told the police 6 that she had known the victim for over two years, was in a relationship with him, and was pregnant with his child. During the course of their relationship he had assaulted her, the last time on the morning of his death. 7 She told police that at about 7 A.M. that morning, she had been driven by Steven Chaney, a long-time friend, to Shaun Jones's apartment. Nathaniel Jones arrived in a taxi at the same time. 8 Crawford told Chaney to drive away, but Nathaniel Jones chased the car, jumped on it, and, while assaulting Crawford, dragged her by her hair out of the car, into the building, and up the stairs into the third-floor apartment. There he dragged her into the bedroom, shut the door, and continued to assault her.

Alerted by Chaney to the assault on his sister, the defendant's brother, Errin Crawford, arrived at the apartment, interrupting the beating. He argued with the victim, and told his sister to leave with him. The defendant and her brother then drove with Chaney to Chaney's apartment, where Errin Crawford retrieved something from some bushes, which the defendant said was a gun. 9 Errin Crawford, Steve Chaney, the defendant, and Willie Stone, Jr., then walked back to Shaun Jones's apartment. 10 When they entered the apartment, the victim ran into the bedroom and hid in a closet. According to the defendant, she and her brother followed him into the bedroom, where Errin Crawford shot the victim. She told the police that she heard two or three shots fired, and that the victim was screaming. Errin Crawford, Stone, Chaney, the defendant, and Shaun Jones all ran out of the apartment. Crawford told Detective Horsley that her brother had shot the victim because he beat her "all the time"; her brother had seen the defendant's bruises from the victim's assault on her that morning and "got mad and did what he did."

2. Just prior to trial, a hearing was held on Crawford's motion to suppress the statements she had made in response to the police questioning. Detective Horsley testified that, when the defendant was arrested in mid-afternoon, she had to be awakened, appeared disheveled, but did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He testified that she had cried during the interview; the tape recording has many lengthy pauses when Crawford can be heard crying.

Crawford testified that, during her interrogation, she had vomited several times, and she had been feeling the effects of large amounts of alcohol she had consumed the night before and cocaine she had ingested over the previous four days. She testified that she was pressured into speaking to Detective Horsley and had been feeling "beaten up, torn down." She testified that, although earlier at the police station she had denied ever receiving medical treatment for injuries she received from victim, her statement was not true. 11 See note 7, supra.

Defense counsel then called an expert psychologist to testify on the defendant's state of mind as a victimized or battered woman. Crawford made a written and oral offer of proof in support of the admission of the expert opinion testimony on her "motion to suppress statements and at trial." 12 The judge refused to allow the expert to testify, stating that he did not need "any expert to help me determine whether or not she voluntarily, intelligently and knowingly waived any rights she might have had in the circumstances, and whether or not the statement was voluntary." The judge further stated that: "I don't think a jury needs [the expert testimony] either. That's something that an ordinary person can determine on all the evidence in this case. No expert is needed for that purpose." He denied the motion.

Crawford argues that it was error for the judge to refuse to consider the testimony of the expert psychologist at the hearing on the motion to suppress and to bar that testimony from the jury's consideration of the voluntariness of her statement. In the circumstances of this case, and based on the proffer of the defendant, the judge should have admitted the testimony of Crawford's expert witness. Our "humane practice" requires that at a preliminary hearing in the absence of the jury, a judge must decide whether a defendant's incriminating statements were voluntary. Commonwealth v. Tavares, 385 Mass. 140, 149, 430 N.E.2d 1198, cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1137, 102 S.Ct. 2967, 73 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1982). Moreover, "[d]ue process requires the Commonwealth to persuade the judge at the suppression hearing that the statement was voluntary before it is admitted in evidence at trial." Id. at 151, 430 N.E.2d 1198, citing Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 376, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964), and Commonwealth v. Harris, 371 Mass. 462, 471 n. 3, 358 N.E.2d 982 (1976). A trial judge, therefore, has a "constitutional obligation to conduct a voir dire examination in the absence of the jury where the voluntariness of a confession is in issue and to make an affirmative finding of voluntariness before the jury are allowed to consider it." Commonwealth v. Tavares, supra at 151, 430 N.E.2d 1198, quoting Commonwealth v. Harris, supra at 469, 358 N.E.2d 982.

At a suppression hearing, there is an initial presumption that the defendant's statement is voluntary, placing the burden on the defendant to produce evidence tending to show otherwise. See Commonwealth v. Harris, supra at 471 n. 3, 358 N.E.2d 982. Where, as here, that evidence is forthcoming, the presumption disappears and the Commonwealth must then prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement was voluntary. Commonwealth v. Tavares, supra at 152, 430 N.E.2d 1198. If evidence proffered by the defendant is not admitted, the burden of proof does not shift.

The testimony of experts may provide invaluable help to judges and to juries in making a determination of voluntariness. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Chung, 378 Mass. 451, 458 n. 8, 392 N.E.2d 1015 (1979) (judge had independent obligation to instruct jury to consider voluntariness of confession in light of extensive psychiatric evidence of involuntariness); Commonwealth v. Banuchi, 335 Mass. 649, 654-656, 141 N.E.2d 835 (1957) (prejudicial error to exclude expert testimony on effect of sudden deprivation of alcohol or mental capacity of confirmed alcoholic to make alleged confessions). See also United States v. Gordon, 638 F.Supp. 1120 (W.D.La.1986), aff'd, 812 F.2d 965 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1009, 107 S.Ct. 3238, 97 L.Ed.2d 743 (1987) (battered woman syndrome expert evidence admissible in suppression hearing on voluntariness of statements of defendant accused of joint venture murder of abusive husband); Commonwealth v. Hunter, 416 Mass. 831, 832-833, 626 N.E.2d 873 (1994) (reversal required where defendant offered expert psychiatric testimony on voluntariness and judge denied motion for voir dire). In making his assessment, a judge may not simply rely on his own generalized knowledge of alcoholism, substance abuse, battered woman syndrome, or other debilitating conditions, but must make a determination whether a particular statement made by a particular def...

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  • Commonwealth v. DiGiambattista, SJC-09155 (MA 8/16/2004)
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    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
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    • United States
    • Suffolk University Law Review Vol. 41 No. 4, September 2008
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