Com. v. Fitzgerald

• Citation: 412 Mass. 516,590 N.E.2d 1151
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Daniel FITZGERALD.
• Decision Date: 24 April 1992
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1151

590 N.E.2d 1151

412 Mass. 516

COMMONWEALTH v. Daniel FITZGERALD.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Middlesex.

Argued Feb. 3, 1992.

Decided April 24, 1992.

Andrew Good, Boston, for defendant.

David R. Marks, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Com.

Before NOLAN, LYNCH, O'CONNOR and GREANEY, JJ.

GREANEY, Justice.

In Commonwealth v. Fitzgerald, 402 Mass. 517, 524 N.E.2d 72 (1988), we ordered a new trial for the defendant on his conviction of rape because he should have been allowed to inform the jury that he had been sterilized by a vasectomy procedure performed twelve years prior to the alleged rape. We concluded that this evidence would have tended to show that the defendant was not the source of seminal fluid found by the Commonwealth's chemist on the complainant's underpants. After retrial, the defendant was again convicted of rape. The defendant appealed, and we granted his application for direct appellate review. We conclude that there was error at the retrial which requires reversal.

The following evidence was presented by the Commonwealth. On Tuesday night, June 4, 1985, the complainant, a sixteen year old high school student, spent the night at the defendant's house drinking alcohol. Her boy friend was with her. In the early morning hours of Wednesday, June 5, while still at the defendant's house, she had sexual intercourse with her boy friend who, the complainant testified, ejaculated inside her vagina. On June 5, she went directly to school from the defendant's house. During the school day, the complainant's school advisor drove her home, where the complainant showered, changed her underwear and shirt, and may have changed her blue jeans. The advisor then drove the complainant back to school.

Later on June 5, the complainant and her boy friend gathered at the defendant's house along with the defendant's teenaged sons and several other young men and women. The complainant drank at least four drinks of vodka and orange juice that she had taken from her parents' home without their knowledge, and at least one other alcoholic drink given to her by someone else at the defendant's house. At some time during the evening, the complainant's boy friend helped her to the upstairs bathroom. He then attempted to put the complainant in an upstairs bedroom, but the defendant told him to put her to bed downstairs in the defendant's bedroom. She admitted she was intoxicated and unsteady on her feet when she fell asleep fully clothed on the defendant's bed. (The complainant suffers from Friedrich's Ataxia, a progressive neuromuscular disorder which, unbeknownst to the complainant at the time of the attack, made her unusually susceptible to the effects of alcohol.) At some point, the complainant awoke to find herself undressed from the waist down with the defendant on top of her having intercourse. She may have been slightly intoxicated when she awoke.

To this testimony provided by the complainant, the Commonwealth added the testimony of a nurse-rape counsellor and two police officers, each of whom acted primarily as a fresh complaint witness. The police officers also testified as to the contents of a statement the defendant made while in custody, and to the circumstances and results of the execution of a search of the defendant's house pursuant to a warrant.

The defense called five witnesses. The first witness, a physician, testified that he had performed a vasectomy procedure on the defendant on October 12, 1973, and as a result of that procedure the defendant could not have emitted any sperm. The defense next called a senior chemist for the Department of Public Safety (department) who, based on tests he had performed, determined that the defendant was a type O secretor, and the complainant's boy friend a type O nonsecretor. ¹ This witness also indicated that, based on tests conducted shortly after the incident, the stains found in the crotch area of the complainant's underpants contained semen, and genetic markers deposited by a person with type O blood and positive secretor status. ² The defense then called a second state chemist, who testified that she sent certain specimens to a forensic laboratory located in Denver, Colorado. ³

Following these witnesses, the defense presented the videotaped testimony of a senior forensic geneticist from the Analytical Genetic Testing Center (AGTC) in Denver, Colorado. The AGTC laboratory performed several tests in 1989 (after we had ordered a new trial) on the materials taken from the complainant and other samples and found that: (1) the complainant was a type O secretor; (2) the defendant's semen contained no sperm cells; (3) the complainant's boy friend was a type O nonsecretor, and (4) the crotch area of the complainant's underpants revealed the presence of bodily fluids from someone who secreted type B-antigens and, therefore, was a member of blood group B. Neither the complainant, her boy friend, nor the defendant has type B blood.

The last defense witness was the complainant's boy friend who admitted having intercourse with the victim in the early morning hours of June 5, and stated that he had ejaculated "near her or in her."

We now summarize the rulings which we shall conclude were erroneous. Prior to trial, the Commonwealth filed a motion entitled "Motion in Limine As to Circumstances By Which Serological Testing Was Performed." This motion sought to exclude at trial all mention by the defense that the Commonwealth had selected, retained, and compensated AGTC in 1989 to perform additional tests and that the prosecutor had been the recipient of the report of the AGTC's test results. Over objection by defense counsel, the judge allowed the Commonwealth's motion, and ruled that this information was collateral and irrelevant. As a result, defense counsel could not bring to the jury's attention the fact that the B-antigen finding was made by a laboratory which had been selected, retained, and paid by the Commonwealth, and this information was edited out of the videotaped testimony of the geneticist from AGTC that was shown to the jury.

Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion pursuant to the rape shield statute G.L. c. 233, § 21B (1990 ed.), ⁴ entitled "Motion in Limine Concerning Sexual Activity of Complainant." Ruling on this motion was deferred by the judge until the cross-examination of the complainant at trial. During cross-examination of the complainant, based on the scientific evidence of the finding of B-antigens, defense counsel sought to ask the complainant whether she had intercourse with anyone other than her attacker on the night of the alleged rape. The judge excluded the question. The judge expressed the view that the inquiry was speculative, irrelevant, and improper unless the defendant could prove the identity of the unvasectomized male who might have secreted the B-antigens in the course of sexual intercourse with the complainant. The judge also felt that, because enough had not been shown to permit the question to prove possible bias on the complainant's part, allowing the question would violate the rape-shield statute by interjecting prejudicial material into the trial.

The issue of the defendant's right to this testimony reemerged as a result of the Commonwealth's cross-examination of one of the State chemists called by the defense. In response to questioning by the prosecutor, the chemist indicated that nonmotile sperm can exist in the vaginal canal for up to five days. At the conclusion of the defense case, in response to the testimony elicited on cross-examination, the defendant's counsel moved to recall the complainant to ask her whether she had sexual relations with anyone other than her boy friend and her attacker during the five-day period prior to the incident. The purpose of the proposed inquiry was to rebut the evidence elicited by the prosecutor that nonmotile sperm and, inferentially, the B-antigens, could have been present in the complainant's vaginal canal for up to five days prior to the alleged rape. Concluding that the proposed inquiry was still speculative and improper, the judge denied the motion to recall the complainant.

1. The rulings described above were erroneous. The defendant conceded at trial that the complainant had been raped. He maintained that he, however, had not committed the crime. He argued that the perpetrator was probably the secretor of the B-antigens and that the complainant had wrongly identified him either accidently (because she was too intoxicated to tell who her attacker was) or purposely. The defendant also suggested that the complainant (because of her intoxicated condition) could not identify the secretor of the B-antigens as her attacker and, consequently, fabricated her accusation of him to avoid her parents' disapproval and anger over her conduct.

The defense had a basis in the evidence to propose these contentions. There was scientific evidence indicating that, because of his vasectomy, the defendant could produce no sperm; therefore, he could not have secreted the sperm cells found in the complainant's vaginal canal and in the crotch area of her underpants. The type O genetic markers found in the crotch area of the complainant's underpants could have come from her own bodily secretions and not necessarily from the defendant. Importantly, the secretor of the B-antigens could not have been the defendant, the complainant, or her boy friend. There was also evidence that the complainant was intoxicated and evidence the complainant's parents would likely be angry because of her activities.

It is also reasonably apparent that the prosecution changed its strategy after the first trial because of the defendant's proof that he had undergone a vasectomy procedure and the finding of B-antigens. Instead of calling a State chemist as a prosecution witness (as had been done in the first trial, see note 2, supra ), the prosecutor left both chemists to be called by the...