Com. v. Forrester

• Citation: 309 N.E.2d 190,365 Mass. 37
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Michael Eugene FORRESTER.
• Decision Date: 29 March 1974
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 190

309 N.E.2d 190

365 Mass. 37

COMMONWEALTH v. Michael Eugene FORRESTER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

Argued Feb. 4, 1974.

Decided March 29, 1974.

Efrem A. Gordon, Springfield, for defendant.

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

Before TAURO, C.J., and QUIRICO, BRAUCHER, HENNESSEY and KAPLAN, JJ.

QUIRICO, Justice.

The defendant was tried on an indictment charging him with murder in the first degree of Elaine Baker Turner (the victim). The trial was conducted pursuant to G.L c. 278, §§ 33A--33H, as amended. The jury found the defendant guilty as charged and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. ¹ The case is before us on the defendant's appeal based on his assignment of errors.

We briefly review undisputed facts. Early on the morning of February 22, 1971, the body of the victim was found in a parking lot behind a vacant store in the Winchester Square section of Springfield; an autopsy report established that she had died of multiple stab wounds several hours before she was found. About 2:15 A.M. on that same morning, a fireman on duty in a fire station located in Winchester Square and a student living at the station as caretaker had seen the victim walk in front of the station and enter an olive green automobile with a flowered vinyl roof and had watched the car drive off down the street. They both had seen and described the driver of the car as a tall black male with dark trousers and a bright shirt. Through investigation, the police discovered that an automobile answering the description given by the fireman and the student was registered in the name of the defendant's wife ² and that the defendant was in the United States Air Force, stationed at Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee. On February 25, 1971, Detective John J. Sullivan and another officer of the Springfield police department, a Detective Goldthwaite, went to the Westover base with a search warrant for the defendant's automobile. They met the defendant and after a brief discussion about his ownership of the car in question, they asked him to accompany them to the Springfield police station, which he did. His automobile was towed to the station under police orders. After interrogation by Springfield's Deputy Chief James McCarthy at the police station, and after he had made both oral and written statements to the police, the defendant was placed under arrest. He was indicted for the murder of Elaine Baker Turner in March, 1971.

Prior to trial the defendant filed a motion to suppress 'any physical evidence obtained from him or from his automobile . . . (and) any oral or written statement, or any evidence obtained directly or indirectly as a result of any such oral or written statement, on the ground that said physical evidence and statements were obtained in violation of the Defendant's Constitutional Rights.' His assignment of errors relates entirely to the trial judge's disposition of this motion. ³ We summarize those portions of the pre-trial hearing on the motion and of the trial proceedings which are pertinent to our consideration of the contentions he raises.

The pre-trial hearing took place on October 10 and 11, 1972. Detective Sullivan, called by the defendant as his only witness, testified as follows. On the day that he came to the Westover Air Force Base and transported the defendant to the Springfield police station, February 25, 1971, he had asked the defendant three questions about his car before they left the base, to which the defendant had given answers. Neither he nor Detective Goldthwaite had had any further conversation with the defendant prior to reaching the station. Once the defendant arrived there, further interrogation did take place, conducted by Deputy Chief McCarthy. Sullivan was present throughout this questioning. The deputy chief asked the defendant if he had been in possession of his car on the evening of February 21, 1971, and the defendant proceeded to make several statements concerning his whereabouts that evening, changing his story in the process. He ultimately told the police officers that he had picked up two white men and a white woman late in the evening, that the woman had sat in the front seat and had been bleeding, and that she had said she had been in a fight in a cafe which he knew from her description to be a bar or cafe in Springfield called the Windsor Court. (It was undisputed that the victim was a white woman who worked as a waitress at the Windsor Court.) At that point McCarthy advised the defendant fully of his rights under the Miranda decision, inquired into his education, and asked whether he understood those rights. The defendant answered affirmatively and then executed a handwritten statement on a twopage police department form, each page containing at the top a printed notice of the Miranda warnings and a printed statement of waiver. He signed each page of the form in two places, first below the printed portion and again at the bottom of the page, below his own written statement. McCarthy and Sullivan witnessed his signature. ⁴ Sullivan was unwavering in his testimony on both direct and cross-examination that the defendant had made several oral statements to the police before the deputy chief informed him of his rights under the Miranda decision.

Deputy Chief McCarthy was then called as a witness for the Commonwealth and testified as follows. The defendant was brought into his presence in the detective Winsor (sic) Court in the paper.' He read the afternoon of February 25, 1971, by Detectives Sullivan and Goldthwaite. Before asking him any questions, McCarthy fully informed the defendant of his Miranda rights. The defendant said that the 'officer in the field' had already told him of these rights and McCarthy said he was nonetheless obliged to repeat them. He then inquired as to whether the defendant understood his rights and asked him about his prior experience. The defendant answered that he had been a high school teacher and that he did understand his rights. McCarthy then asked him about his activities on the night of February 21, 1971, and the defendant gave several conflicting statements in response, the substance of which McCarthy related. His description of the defendant's oral statements was generally, although not entirely, consistent with Sullivan's testimony on the subject. McCarthy and Sullivan then took the defendant down to his car in the police station garage for him to show them the blood he had stated was on the seat. They then returned to the detective bureau, and, at McCarthy's request, the defendant agreed to write out 'the true story' for the police. McCarthy got a statement form and, before letting the defendant write on it, repeated to him the Miranda warnings and the statement of waiver printed on the top, below which the defendant signed his name. The defendant then wrote down his statement without interruption from the police officers. McCarthy read the statement back to the defendant who then signed it, and McCarthy and Sullivan witnessed his signature.

In addition to the testimony summarized above, evidence was also introduced at the hearing concerning the search of the defendant's car and of his room at the Westover base. At the close of the hearing the Judge orally denied the defendant's motion to suppress 'except in regard to any interrogation of the Defendant which may have occurred prior to the Miranda warning.' He neither made any oral nor filed any written findings of fact. The defendant claimed an exception to the ruling and to the form of the ruling.

The trial began before the same judge the same day as the denial of the defendant's motion. At the trial Deputy Chief McCarthy was permitted to testify to substantially the same information he had given in the pre-trial hearing concerning the Miranda warnings and the contents of the defendant's oral statements. The defendant's signed written statement was introduced in evidence. The defendant claimed an exception to the introduction of McCarthy's testimony but did not raise at the trial any question about the timeliness of the Miranda warnings given by McCarthy. Detective Sullivan also testified to the defendant's oral statements made to McCarthy and himself, and reasserted that the defendant was not given the Miranda warnings until after he had made the oral statements.

The defendant assigns as error the judge's denial of his motion to suppress the oral and written statements made to the police on February 25, 1971. He states that it was an 'abuse of . . . (the judge's) discretion' to disregard Detective Sullivan's account of the interrogation of the defendant in the Springfield police station, particularly with reference to his account of the timing of the Miranda warnings, and to 'give greater weight and credibility to former Deputy Chief McCarthy whose familiarity with regard to . . . (the interrogation proceedings) was demonstrably less accurate then the recollection and account of Detective Sullivan.' He also assigns as error the judge's failure to submit a report of material facts or findings in relation to his denial of the motion.

1. Since the United States Supreme Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), it is clear that the admissibility of any statements made by a defendant as a result of custodial interrogation by the police depends on his having first received from them instructions or warnings which satisfy the requirements set forth in the Miranda opinion. This rule obtains whether the statements are termed 'confessions' or 'admissions.' 384 U.S. at 444, 476--477, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.ed.2d 694. 'The Miranda case provides safeguards to the privilege against self-incrimination by requiring that explicit instructions be given to a person in custody on the right to the assistance of counsel. In brief, these safeguards require that the person who is in custody for...