Com. v. Jones

• Decision Date: 04 August 1987
• Citation: 511 N.E.2d 17,400 Mass. 544
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. John M. JONES.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 17

511 N.E.2d 17

400 Mass. 544

COMMONWEALTH v. John M. JONES.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Essex.

Argued May 4, 1987.

Decided Aug. 4, 1987.

Patrick J. Riley (Patricia S. Hohl, Boston, with him), for defendant.

Robert J. Bender, Asst. Dist. Atty., for Com.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, NOLAN and LYNCH, JJ.

WILKINS, Justice.

The defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree of Donald Pinkham. The evidence showed that Pinkham was killed in Gloucester in the early hours of October 1, 1982. His body was badly burned, bruised, and beaten; part of his face was missing; and his head appeared to have been crushed.

There was sufficient evidence to warrant the jury's verdict, and the defendant does not argue otherwise. Much of the incriminating evidence came from three young women to whom the defendant made various inculpatory statements shortly before or after Pinkham's death. The defendant challenges the admission of those statements arguing that they were not voluntarily made. He also contends that statements made to one of the young women in his presence by his accomplice, then a juvenile, were otherwise inadmissible. He further challenges certain aspects of his trial. Finally, he seeks relief under G.L. c. 278, § 33E (1984 ed.), arguing, among other things, that there is a fundamental unfairness between his life sentence and his accomplice's commitment to the Division of Youth Services as a juvenile only until his eighteenth birthday. ¹ We affirm the conviction.

The defendant and the juvenile planned to rob the victim for his money. They killed him on a path, ironically known as "Dead Man's Path," near the railroad tracks. They set his body on fire. They struck his head with rocks causing seriously disfiguring injuries. They then went to the apartment of Jody Tyne, a friend of the defendant who was several years older than they. There the two made admissions, whose admissibility we discuss later. On Tyne's order, the next day the defendant, admitting to nothing, led the police to the victim's body. The defendant told his then girl friend that "they did it" because the juvenile wanted money. He admitted to kicking the victim and going "wild." He made admissions to another woman who lived in the same development where he and Tyne also lived. He agreed with her to turn himself in to the police. There was testimony from various sources that the defendant had been drinking on the night of the murder.

1. The defendant argues that the judge erred in permitting Tyne to testify to what the juvenile said to her in her apartment on the night of the killing, while in the defendant's presence. The defendant contends that the juvenile's statements were not admissible as adoptive admissions. ²

We review relevant portions of Tyne's testimony. Between 2:20 A.M. and 2:30 A.M., of October 1, 1982, the defendant and the juvenile arrived outside Tyne's first floor apartment in Maplewood Park in Gloucester. She let them in. The juvenile had blood on his clothes and on his hands which he washed in a sink in the bathroom. The defendant had a bloody handprint on his wrist, blood on his fingernails, and spots of blood on his pants and sneakers. The three had a conversation in the parlor. The juvenile said that he beat the victim with rocks and told how he burned him. The defendant, who had apparently been crying since his arrival, continued to cry. The defendant made reference to a Sweet Shop where they said they went "for an alibi." They both mentioned code names they had used to avoid detection and laughed about it. They said that they wanted to "roll" the victim because he had just received a check. The juvenile told the defendant that "he was in this with him whether he wanted to be or not." In response the defendant cried. ³ Asked if the defendant had been sober, Tyne replied that "[h]e was totally out of his mind."

This testimony does not present the picture the defendant seeks to portray of an inebriated defendant who sat quietly while the juvenile made statements to Tyne. To the extent that the defendant participated in the conversation, his statements and the statements of others to which he responded were admissible. Commonwealth v. Simpson, 370 Mass. 119, 123, 345 N.E.2d 899 (1976). As to any statement made by the juvenile, the question whether in the circumstances the defendant adopted them by his response or responses was properly for the jury. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 394 Mass. 510, 515, 476 N.E.2d 580 (1985); Commonwealth v. McGrath, 351 Mass. 534, 538, 222 N.E.2d 774 (1967); Commonwealth v. Boris, 317 Mass. 309, 317, 58 N.E.2d 8 (1944).

Because Tyne's testimony concerning statements made by the juvenile in the defendant's presence was properly admitted on well-established principles of evidence, the defendant was not denied his constitutional right of confrontation. See Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 2539, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980); Commonwealth v. Brown, supra; Commonwealth v. McLaughlin, 364 Mass. 211, 219, 303 N.E.2d 338 (1973). This is not a situation in which the Commonwealth was obliged to demonstrate the unavailability of the juvenile before his statements could be admitted.

The judge was warranted in finding beyond a reasonable doubt that various statements the defendant made to witnesses were voluntarily made. The judge held voir dire hearings on the voluntariness of the defendant's statements to the witnesses and ruled that the defendant made the statements voluntarily. This is a matter on which an appellate court grants considerable deference to the trial judge's findings. The credibility of these witnesses and the voluntariness of the defendant's statements, therefore, were properly submitted to the jury.

2. We briefly consider other arguments. (a) The defendant objects to the judge's refusal to charge the jury that the defendant's intoxication could be considered in deciding whether the Commonwealth had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had a specific intent to steal, which is an element of robbery, and, therefore, one element of a felony-murder...