Com. v. Huot

• Decision Date: 16 April 1980
• Citation: 380 Mass. 403,403 N.E.2d 411
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Douglas Paul HUOT.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 411

403 N.E.2d 411

380 Mass. 403

COMMONWEALTH v. Douglas Paul HUOT.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Jan. 9, 1980.

Decided April 16, 1980.

Ellen Y. Suni, Boston (Jack I. Zalkind, Boston, with her), for defendant.

Michael J. Traft, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Before HENNESSEY, C. J., and BRAUCHER, KAPLAN, LIACOS and ABRAMS, JJ.

LIACOS, Justice.

On February 10, 1967, Douglas Paul Huot (Huot) was indicted for murder in the first degree. A trial began on July 11, 1967. On July 19, 1967, Huot pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Huot petitioned a single justice of this court in March, 1970, for a writ of error on the ground that his guilty plea was coerced. After a hearing on the merits, the single justice ruled on June 14, 1971, that Huot's plea was voluntary, was made after reasonable inquiry by the judge and was not constitutionally infirm. He affirmed the conviction, but reserved and reported his findings, rulings, and order for judgment. In Huot v. Commonwealth, 363 Mass. 91, 292 N.E.2d 700 (1973), the full bench concurred with the single justice. On September 27, 1977, the defendant moved for a new trial in the Superior Court for Suffolk County pursuant to G.L. c. 278, § 29. He alleged that his plea was invalid because, before he pleaded guilty, he was not informed of the essential elements of the crimes of first and second degree murder and manslaughter, nor was he informed that he had certain constitutional rights. ¹ After hearing, a judge of the Superior Court denied the motion. Huot appealed. We transferred the appeal here on our own motion. We affirm.

At the hearing on the motion for a new trial, the judge heard the defendant's testimony and received in evidence four exhibits, including the defendant's first degree murder indictment of February 13, 1967, and the June 14, 1971, findings, rulings, and order for judgment of the single justice. The judge took note of Huot v. Commonwealth, supra. He made several findings relating to the 1967 trial, plea and sentencing proceedings. According to the judge, the defendant was represented throughout by able, experienced counsel. Huot was twenty-seven years old, a sophomore in college, with college entrance examination scores above 600 and an IQ of 151. He was "intelligent, mature, and under no impediment to a full understanding of his circumstances." The judge found that the indictment, which included the phrase "with intent to murder her," was served on Huot on February 13, 1967, and was read to him at the time of his plea. Before offering to enter a plea of guilty of murder in the second degree, Huot sat through "several days of trial in which the Commonwealth had produced expert testimony showing numerous violent injuries to the victim and other testimony showing sufficient evidence upon which the jury could return a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree." The judge found that the defendant was made aware of the element of murder in the first degree supplied by proof of an act involving extreme atrocity and cruelty. Finally, the judge found that, at the time of the 1971 hearing before the single justice, the defendant understood that malice aforethought "is an element (of murder) which must be proved by the government beyond a reasonable doubt." Based on these findings, the judge concluded that Huot "was aware of and understood all of the critical elements of the crime of murder, and that he intelligently and voluntarily pleaded guilty to so much of the indictment charging first degree murder as constituted murder in the second degree."

In Huot v. Commonwealth, 363 Mass. at 92-96, 292 N.E.2d 700, we summarized at length the proceedings before the single justice in 1971. Our discussion details the single justice's account of the trial, plea and sentencing proceedings. We do not repeat the summary here. However, we note that according to the evidence presented at trial, Huot went one evening with the victim, Betty Jeanne Orrill, and others to the Playboy Club where Huot had several drinks. Huot and Orrill argued and left the club at 12:30 A.M. At 4:30 A.M., the police found Huot nude from the waist down in the victim's bedroom and trying to resuscitate her. She had apparently been beaten to death with hard punches and a shod foot. Medical testimony described her injuries in detail. There was also testimony describing the condition of the room at the time the police arrived and describing what Huot said at that time. Id. at 93, 292 N.E.2d 700.

When defendant pleaded guilty on July 19, 1967, his lawyer said: "He tells me that he has spotty recall of what took place there the balance of the evening at the Playboy Club. He doesn't remember driving home at all.

"And I suggest that he does remember enough of the facts and he tells me to know that he is the person responsible for this homicide. But I would respectfully suggest that because of the amount of liquor that was consumed by him that it should be considered as a mitigating factor." After the lawyer made this statement, the judge asked Huot if he understood the severity of the offense and the seriousness of the sentence involved. Huot answered each question, "Yes," and after answering other questions he eventually pleaded guilty "to so much of this indictment . . . as charges you with Murder in the Second Degree." ²

Huot argues that his motion for a new trial is the proper vehicle for challenging the constitutionality of his guilty plea. He argues that by virtue of the United States Supreme Court decision in Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637, 96 S.Ct. 2253, 49 L.Ed.2d 108 (1976), decided after his prior appeal, his guilty plea was invalid. Huot argues that Henderson is retroactive, and that he did not have adequate notice and understanding of the essential elements of the charges to which he pled, as required by that decision.

The Commonwealth argues that the defendant failed to raise his present contentions in the earlier proceedings attacking the voluntariness of his plea; this failure, according to the Commonwealth, constitutes a waiver, and the motion judge therefore did not abuse his discretion in denying the defendant's motion for a new trial.

A motion for new trial is the appropriate device for attacking the validity of a guilty plea. Commonwealth v. Penrose, 363 Mass. 677, 681, 296 N.E.2d 819, 822 (1973). "(I)n the absence of waiver or other bar, there is no discretion to deny a new trial if a plea of guilty is entered in violation of a constitutional right of the defendant." Id. The motion judge did not purport to exercise his discretion in denying the defendant's motion; instead he reached the merits. Moreover, refusal to reach the merits would have been error, for the defendant's arguments concerning a possible interpretation of Henderson v. Morgan, supra, raised new matters that could not reasonably have been raised in the earlier proceedings. ³

Huot's attack on the voluntariness of his plea rests on the decision in Henderson v. Morgan, supra. Because Huot pleaded guilty in 1967 and the Court decided Henderson in 1976, the question arises whether Henderson is retroactive. We need not decide that question, however, for even assuming arguendo that Henderson is retroactive, we think that Huot's plea was valid.

In Henderson the defendant, a person of unusually low intelligence, was indicted for first degree murder. At his arraignment, after a reading of the indictment, he pleaded guilty to second degree murder. New York law made "a design to effect the death of the person killed" an element of second degree murder, N.Y. Penal Law § 1046 (McKinney 1967), but the trial judge found as a fact that this was never explained to the defendant. According to the United States Supreme Court, the failure to give the defendant notice of this "critical element" of second degree murder, 426 U.S. at 647 n. 18, 96 S.Ct. at 2258 n. 18, rendered his plea involuntary. Furthermore, the Court found "nothing in this record that can serve as a substitute for either a finding after trial, or a voluntary admission, that respondent had the requisite intent. Defense counsel did not purport to stipulate to that fact; they did not explain to him that his plea would be an admission of that fact; and he made no factual statement or admission necessarily implying that he had such intent." Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. at 646, 96 S.Ct. at 2258. The defendant in Henderson did admit that he had stabbed the victim repeatedly, but at the sentencing hearing, the defendant's lawyers asserted that he "meant no harm" when he entered the victim's room with a knife. According to the Supreme Court, "even if . . . a design to effect death would almost inevitably have been inferred from evidence that respondent repeatedly stabbed Mrs. Francisco, it is nevertheless also true that a jury would not have been required to draw that inference. The jury would have been entitled to accept defense counsel's appraisal of the incident as involving only manslaughter in the first degree." Id. at 645-646, 96 S.Ct. at 2258. In addition, the defendant's low intelligence lent a "modicum of credibility" to the manslaughter theory, id. at 647, 96 S.Ct. at 2258; thus, there could have been a reasonable doubt about the defendant's intent to kill.

Since Henderson was decided, we have had three opportunities to consider its meaning. Osborne v. Commonwealth, --- Mass. --- ^a, 389 N.E.2d 981 (1979); Commonwealth v. Soffen, --- Mass. --- ^b, 385 N.E.2d 1030 (1979); Commonwealth v. McGuirk, --- Mass. --- ^c, 380 N.E.2d 662 (1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1120, 99 S.Ct. 1030, 59 L.Ed.2d 80 (1979). Three times we have sustained guilty pleas against constitutional attack based on Henderson. In each case, neither the judge at the plea hearing nor the defense counsel explained to the defendant the essential elements of second degree murder, but the defendant...