Com. v. Gallant

• Decision Date: 19 January 2006
• Docket Number: No. 03-P-255.,03-P-255.
• Citation: 65 Mass. App. Ct. 409,840 N.E.2d 998
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Timothy GALLANT.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 998

840 N.E.2d 998

65 Mass. App. Ct. 409

COMMONWEALTH v. Timothy GALLANT.

No. 03-P-255.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

Argued August 5, 2005.

Decided January 19, 2006.

Barbara J. Sweeney, Springfield, for the defendant.

Jane Davidson Montori, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Present: GELINAS, BROWN, & BERRY, JJ.

BROWN, J.

After a jury trial in the Superior Court, the defendant was convicted of attempted kidnapping, assault with the intent to commit a felony (kidnapping), and assault and battery. The defendant appealed and filed a motion for a new trial. In the motion, the defendant also presented additional claims under the rubric of ineffective assistance of counsel. We discern no error.

The defendant's appeal from these convictions would be rather unremarkable, but for the often troublesome question of duplicative convictions. Initially, we will address the core issues raised on appeal in summary fashion, and then treat the defendant's claim of duplicative convictions in more extensive detail.

1. Ineffective assistance. The defendant makes a variety of arguments concerning his attorney's purported ineffectiveness. The defendant's trial counsel's performance did not fall below the standard articulated in Commonwealth v. Saferian, 366 Mass. 89, 96, 315 N.E.2d 878 (1974), and Commonwealth v. Satterfield, 373 Mass. 109, 115, 364 N.E.2d 1260 (1977). Nor did the affidavits submitted in support of his motion present any substantial issues that warranted an evidentiary hearing. See Commonwealth v. Savage, 51 Mass.App.Ct. 500, 505, 746 N.E.2d 1029 (2001). It is particularly significant that the defendant has not shown that "better work might have accomplished something material for the defense." Commonwealth v. Satterfield, supra. We examine each aspect of the defendant's argument in turn.

a. Victim's testimony. The victim's testimony was littered with statements to the effect that the defendant had "tried to take" her.¹ On appeal, the defendant argues that defense counsel should have vigorously sought to exclude such similar statements because they constituted impermissible opinion evidence describing the defendant's state of mind, thereby relieving the Commonwealth from having to prove the defendant's intent, an element of the two charges involving kidnapping. The argument, however, is flawed because the victim's statement was not an opinion as to the defendant's state of mind or intent.

Summary descriptions based on sensory perceptions have long been admissible in evidence. See Commonwealth v. Robertson, 357 Mass. 559, 563, 259 N.E.2d 553 (1970); Commonwealth v. Brusgulis, 41 Mass.App.Ct. 386, 390-391, 670 N.E.2d 207 (1996). Here, the victim's testimony that the defendant had "tried to take" her, viewed in context, is merely a summary description of the specific amount, type, and degree of force she believed the defendant was exerting upon her when he grabbed her.² The remark also undoubtedly incorporates her observations or perceptions of events that preceded the contact, including a van circling her and stopping, and the defendant driver getting out of the vehicle and staring at her in a manner that made her very fearful.³

In any event, even if we were to conclude that counsel could have successfully sought the exclusion of such evidence, his failure to do so did not deprive the defendant of an otherwise available defense.⁴ Evidence of the assailant's intent was not relevant to either of the defense's dual theories of misidentification or fabrication. Cf. Commonwealth v. Carroll, 439 Mass. 547, 553, 789 N.E.2d 1062 (2003) (where excluded evidence was not relevant to any "live issue" at trial, no abuse of discretion).

b. Evidence of an unrelated rape. The defendant also argues that his attorney's performance was deficient because he elicited testimony that the defendant was a suspect in an unrelated rape case. While counsel's conduct in eliciting this evidence was troubling, it is not the type of conduct that decisional law typically views as "manifestly unreasonable." See Commonwealth v. Adams, 374 Mass. 722, 728-729, 375 N.E.2d 681 (1978). In order to reach that threshold, counsel's conduct must have deprived the defendant of a significant defense. See Commonwealth v. Saferian, 366 Mass. at 96, 315 N.E.2d 878.

Here, the introduction of the evidence related to the other rape was brief and Officer O'Toole's testimony was ambiguous. Moreover, the prosecutor did not mention the unrelated rape, but emphasized, instead, the victim's observations and experiences, her identification, and the defendant's reluctance to speak with police after the incident.

c. Defendant's T-shirt. The defendant faults his attorney for failing to discover that the defendant's T-shirt had writing on the front of it and, in turn, for failing to cross-examine the victim on this point in view of her description of the assailant as wearing a "maroon T-shirt with no writing on it." Even assuming that counsel's conduct established the first Saferian prong, better work would have added little heft to the defendant's case. The victim's description of her assailant was detailed and matched the defendant's appearance. The license plate number she gave to the police was registered to a van owned by the defendant, and the defendant's van matched the description of the van she had seen during the incident. Taken together, lettering on the T-shirt was a minor variation that would not have undercut the other significant identification evidence. Moreover, as the Commonwealth argues, reference to the T-shirt would only have highlighted and corroborated the victim's testimony that the shirt was maroon.

d. Second white van. The defendant also argues that counsel failed to investigate the presence of another van in the area that day. According to the defendant, had trial counsel properly investigated the presence of this other van, he would have uncovered this "exculpatory evidence." The defendant, however, has failed to demonstrate, as is required, how the presence of another white van in the area would have been a real factor in the jury's deliberation, given the evidence that the victim had memorized the license plate number of the defendant's van.⁵

2. Duplicative convictions. The defendant alleges that his convictions for attempted kidnapping, G.L. c. 274, § 6, and assault with intent to commit a felony, G.L. c. 265, § 29, are duplicative. To the extent that both are indisputably premised on the same act, he argues that the judgment on the lesser offense, attempted kidnapping,⁶ must be dismissed. We disagree.

The defendant acknowledges that each of the offenses contains an element that the other does not. Specifically, assault with intent to commit a felony requires proof of an assault, see Commonwealth v. Gorassi, 432 Mass. 244, 247-248, 733 N.E.2d 106 (2000); attempted kidnapping requires proof of some overt act aimed at accomplishing a kidnapping, see Commonwealth v. Dixon, 34 Mass.App.Ct. 653, 655, 614 N.E.2d 1027 (1993). In these circumstances multiple convictions are appropriate, even though premised upon the same criminal act.

In Massachusetts, the standard for determining whether multiple convictions based upon a single act are duplicative was first delineated in Morey v. Commonwealth, 108 Mass. 433, 434 (1871), and remains unchanged to this day. Consistent with Morey, "a defendant may properly be punished for two crimes arising out of the same course of conduct provided that each crime requires proof of an element that the other does not." Commonwealth v. Jones, 441 Mass. 73, 74-75, 803 N.E.2d 319 (2004), quoting from Commonwealth v. Valliere, 437 Mass. 366, 371, 772 N.E.2d 27 (2002). In assessing whether convictions based on the same conduct are duplicative, the Supreme Judicial Court recently observed, "the actual criminal acts alleged are wholly irrelevant . . . rather, the elements of the crimes charged are considered objectively, abstracted from the facts" (emphasis added). Commonwealth v. Jones, supra at 76, 803 N.E.2d 319, quoting from Commonwealth v. Jones, 59 Mass.App.Ct. 157, 162, 794 N.E.2d 1220 (2003). Applying this standard, multiple convictions based on the same act have been approved in a large number of prior cases.⁷ See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Buckley, 410 Mass. 209, 222-223, 571 N.E.2d 609 (1991); Commonwealth v. Charles, 428 Mass. 672, 683, 704 N.E.2d 1137 (1999); Commonwealth v. Jones, 441 Mass. at 75-76, 803 N.E.2d 319; Commonwealth v. Arriaga, 44 Mass.App.Ct. 382, 386-387, 691 N.E.2d 585 (1998); Commonwealth v. Diaz, 53 Mass.App.Ct. 209, 211-212, 758 N.E.2d 1058 (2001).

In an attempt to avoid the outcome mandated by Morey, the defendant directs us to language in Commonwealth v. Keohane, 444 Mass. 563, 575, 829 N.E.2d 1125 (2005): "the judge may determine whether the actions of a defendant are so closely related in fact as to constitute in substance but one crime." He suggests that Keohane imposes additional limits, beyond those stated in Morey, on the circumstances in which multiple convictions may be premised upon a single act. The defendant's argument, however, misses the mark.

In the first instance, the "so closely related in fact as to constitute in substance but one crime" standard has been applied more or less exclusively in situations where the disputed issue was how many discrete criminal acts a defendant had committed (i.e., whether a flurry of blows constitutes a single battery or several discrete batteries) — not in cases involving the question whether multiple convictions indisputably based on a single act were permissible. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 405 Mass. 369, 381-382, 540 N.E.2d 1316 (1989); Commonwealth v. Mamay, 407 Mass. 412, 418-419, 553 N.E.2d 945 (1990); Commonwealth v Maldonado, 429 Mass. 502, 509-510, 709 N.E.2d 809 (1999).⁸ Further, and more important, it is difficult to see how such a conduct-based test could ever possibly mesh...