Com. v. Fielding
| Decision Date | 15 September 1976 |
| Citation | 371 Mass. 97,353 N.E.2d 719 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Edward G. FIELDING. COMMONWEALTH v. Joseph R. YANDLE. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
John C. McBride, Chelsea, for defendants.
Bonnie H. MacLeod-Griffin, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.
Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and BRAUCHER, KAPLAN and WILKINS, JJ.
For the trial shooting of Joseph Repucci and robbery during their holdup of a liquor store in Medford on June 20, 1972, a Middlesex grand jury indicted two young men, Edward G. Fielding and Joseph R. Yandle, charging them with murder in the first degree and armed robbery. The codefendants moved before a trial to suppress the statements they had separately made to the police on July 1--2, 1972, contending that the statements were elicited through and resulted from illegal arrests, and were not voluntary but given under the duress of drug 'withdrawal.' After voir dire, which consumed sixteen days of hearings, the judge denied the motions in principal part, though granting them in part. Subsequently a motion to sever the cases was made and granted, and the men were tried separately. The same judge, presiding at Fielding's trial, admitted Fielding's unsuppressed statements, basing himself in effect on the facts developed and the ruling made at voir dire. During Yandle's trial before another judge, application was made for further voir dire, and the jury were temporarily excused and additional evidence was received taking up 340 transcript pages. (This included testimony by Yandle who had not testified on the first voir dire as had Fielding.) The judge admitted Yandle's unsuppressed statements, on the basis, in effect, of the result of the first voir dire and his additional findings on the second. The defendants were each found guilty of the crimes charged. 1
On their appeals to this court, taken under G.L. c. 278, §§ 33A--33G, the chief errors claimed by each are in the refusal to suppress the respective statements in toto, and in the corresponding rulings of the judges during trial admitting the unsuppressed statements in evidence as having been made voluntarily (the ultimate decision on that matter, however, being reserved to the jury) 2. We deal now with these claimed errors, leaving certain other alleged errors for short treatment later in the opinion.
STATEMENTS MADE TO THE POLICE.
As indicated, the facts regarding each defendant's statements to the police were canvassed elaborately. The judge made lengthy and detailed findings on the first voir dire which in the case of Yandle were supplemented by further findings by another judge. To sum up: On undisputed facts, a warrant for the arrest of Fielding was held invalid as having been issued without probable cause, and his actual arrest was ruled illegal for being made without probable cause (part A infra). However, appraising the evidence of the course of events after the defendants were arrested, including direct observations of the defendants, the judge found that the Commonwealth had sustained its burden of establishing that Fielding's statements to the police, though perhaps made during an incipient stage of drug withdrawal, were in fact voluntary and admissible (barring, out of abundance of caution, any statements made after methadone was administered to him at a hospital); and, on a like basis, Yandle's statements were held voluntary and admissible (with a similar exclusion) (part B(1)--(6)). The judges did not accept the defendants' contentions that their statements were foisted on them by the police when they were under the duress of extreme withdrawal and substantially incapable of volition (part B(7)). On the facts, Fielding's unsuppressed statements were not the contaminated 'fruits' of his illegal arrest; nor was the 'fruits' argument available to Yandle, his arrest being consequent upon those statements by Fielding (part C).
We find no reason to disagree with the judges' assessments of the facts and are also in accord with the results they reached on the law. We follow their findings closely in the following narrative and discussion. 3
A. Illegality of the Arrest Warrant and of the Arrest of Fiedling. As noted, the crime occurred on June 20. On June 30, Inspector Griffin of the Medford police had an hour's conversation with an informant (unnamed). Griffin reported the substance to Lt. White who next morning made an oral statement to Anthony R. DiPietro, an assistant clerk of the First District Court of Eastern Middlesex, at Malden, for issuance of a warrant for the arrest of Edward G. Fielding. White stated that Griffin had received 'reliable' information from an informant that Fielding (residing in Charlestown) had told the informant that he had held up a clerk in a liquor store in Medford and killed him with a .22 caliber gun. White said that he (White) knew as a police officer of the commission of the crime referred to. White said nothing more about the informant, and it appears that neither Griffin nor White had previously met the informant, and the informant had not, to their knowledge, previously supplied information to the police.
The arrest warrant issued. Around 6:30 P.M. that day (July 1), White and Griffin and other Medford officers (Inspector O'Reardon and Sergeants McGlynn and Malcolm) met with Detectives Antonucci and Ricci of the Boston police at division 15 in Charlestown, Boston, and informed them of the June 20 murder and of the warrant for Fielding's arrest. White apparently indicated that a 1964 or 1965 Pontiac automobile had been seen near the place about the time of the holdup; this information had come to the Medford police from two or three people who, around the time of the shooting, had seen a dark, beaten-up car of that description carrying two men, going the wrong way on a one-way street near the store. The informant had evidently indicated that Joseph Yandle was regularly with Fielding and that Yandle used such a car. (The information about the car and the relation between Fielding and Yandle had not been mentioned to the Clerk of court.) When White referred to the Pontiac, Antonucci said that could be Yandle's car and Yandle and Fielding were always together.
Responding to White's request for help in arresting Fielding and in finding Yandle for questioning about the car, Ricci, O'Reardon, McGlynn, and Malcolm went out in a search car. About 7:30 P.M., they stopped a red sports car and a young man who got out, in answer to a question, said he was Edward Fielding. Thereupon Sergeant McGlynn showed Fielding the warrant. Fielding was told he was under arrest for the murder of Joseph Repucci on June 20.
Assessing the foregoing facts, the judge held, we think correctly, that the arrest warrant was invalid under the Fourth Amendment because 'probable cause' had not been shown to the clerk of court. The mistake of the police (and of the clerk) lay in assuming that the stated judgment of the police that the informant's information was 'reliable' would suffice. What was missing was evidence to demonstrate the reliability of the informant. See Commonwealth v. Vynorius, --- Mass. ---, --- - --- a 336 N.E.2d 898 (1975); Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 114, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964). 4 The deficiency was not repaired by White's tendering his general knowledge of the commission of the crime which did not implicate Fielding. Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 415--416, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969). Cf. Commonwealth v. Cuddy, 353 Mass. 305, 231 N.E.2d 368 (1967).
The arrest of Fielding at 7:30 P.M. was thus warrantless in a legal sense, but it could be held lawful if the knowledge then possessed by the police amounted to probable cause. Whiteley v. Warden, Wyo. State Penitentiary, 401 U.S. 560, 566, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306 (1971). The judge could find that it did not. Still missing was anything solid pointing to Fielding, once the informant's naming him was discounted because the informant's reliability was not supported. (The judge noted incidentally that the informant's knowledge about the murder with a .22 caliber weapon could have been picked up from news accounts.) If there were some initial, acceptable evidence pointing to Fielding, the Pontiac could suggest Yandle and Yandle might lead back to Fielding and corroborate Fielding's connection; but here the chain failed at the first link.
We turn, then, to the substance of the evidence on the question of the voluntariness of the statements given to the police.
B. Voluntariness of Statements to the Police. (1) Fielding's statements at Charlestown station. Immediately after Fielding was arrested, a Boston 'rights card' containing the Miranda warnings was read to him, and he answered in the affirmative to the question whether he understood his rights. Now White, informed by radio, arrived, and Fielding was transferred to White's car which proceeded to the Charlestown station. During the brief journey, White read to Fielding the arrest warrant and a Medford rights card. 5 White asked whether Fielding, having his rights in mind, wished to talk to the police, and Fielding answered yes, but there was no further talk with Fielding in the car.
Arriving at the Charlestown station about 8 P.M., Fielding was again informed of his rights and put through a booking procedure by Lt. Leary, then in charge of the station. Fielding was told he could use the telephone and was advised to call his family and friends and get a lawyer. In fact he did make a telephone call. A Boston rights card was held up for Fielding to read, and he said he understood. He was then put in a cell. At 8:30 P.M. he was driven to Boston police headquarters by Patrolmen Thomas and Green and Sergenant Malcolm where his picture and fingerprints were taken. By 9:30 P.M. he was back in the cell at Charlestown.
Shortly afterward, White, returning...
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