Com. v. Kirk

• Citation: 654 N.E.2d 938,39 Mass.App.Ct. 225
• Decision Date: 07 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-P-1499,94-P-1499
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. John D. KIRK.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 938

654 N.E.2d 938

39 Mass.App.Ct. 225

COMMONWEALTH v. John D. KIRK.

No. 94-P-1499.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts Norfolk.

Argued May 15, 1995.

Decided Sept. 7, 1995.

Gregory V. St. Cyr, Dedham, for defendant.

Heather M. Kelley, Assistant District Attorney, for the Com.

Before DREBEN, GILLERMAN and IRELAND, JJ.

GILLERMAN, Justice.

The defendant appeals from his conviction of assault and battery, G.L. c. 265, § 13A, after a jury-waived trial in the jury session of the Dedham District Court. He claims the judge erred in denying his motion for a required finding of not guilty at the close of the Commonwealth's case. After viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, but disregarding evidence we decide was erroneously admitted at trial, we conclude that no rational trier of fact could have found an essential element of the crime charged--the identity of the victim's assailant--beyond a reasonable doubt, see Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-677, 393 N.E.2d 370 (1979), and, therefore, we reverse the judgment.

The judge could have found the following facts on the Commonwealth's evidence. On October 5, 1993, about 4:15 P.M., John Burke ¹ was driving on East Hoyle Street in Norwood when he came upon a car parked perpendicular to the sidewalk in an area where cars are usually parked parallel to the sidewalk. Both doors to the automobile were open. The victim, Kathleen Whalen, was standing on the sidewalk in front of the parked car. She was holding one hand with her other hand. She was crying, very upset, and very dishevelled. Burke stopped his car, and asked Whalen what had happened, in response to which she "just came out--she came out and blurted out the statement that 'My boyfriend just beat me up.' " Burke saw that Whalen had puffy eyes, "she had been crying for some time. Her face was red ... and she was very frightened." Whalen told Burke that "her boyfriend had grabbed her wrist, and that she had had a previous injury, and she said he was aware of it, and had hurt her in that manner." Burke asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital; she declined. Burke then asked her if she would like to go to the police station. She said she would. Whalen, in her own car, followed Burke to the police station. Up to this point, Whalen had not identified her "boyfriend."

About fifteen minutes had elapsed between the time Burke first saw Whalen and the time they arrived at the police station. Burke helped Whalen into the police station, gave the police his name and phone number, and left.

Officer David Eysie was at the Norwood police station when Whalen arrived. He saw that Whalen was "teary-eyed, and I also observed her left wrist to be red and swollen ... she was crying on-and-off and she was frightened." Officer Eysie, together with Lieutenant King, spoke to Whalen in the conference room. Whalen later signed a complaint for protection from abuse, see G.L. c. 209A, § 4, and an affidavit in support of the complaint. The affidavit described the assault and battery, and named the defendant in the accompanying complaint as her assailant. Lieutenant King completed the information required by the court's form of a temporary order (the 209A order) and, with the papers in hand, went to his office and called a judge. The 209A order was signed by a judge, ² following which Officers Eysie, Finch, and Brown went to the defendant's apartment and, with some difficulty, arrested the defendant on the charge brought in this case. The defendant was brought to the police station where he was served with the 209A order.

Whalen did not testify at the trial. Her statements to Burke were admitted as spontaneous exclamations. The judge ruled, however, that Whalen's statements to Officer Eysie at the police station did not come within that exception. Over the defendant's objection, Whalen's complaint, her supporting affidavit, and the 209A order, including the return of service upon the defendant, were admitted in evidence as one exhibit. The Commonwealth's stated purpose in offering the documents was to provide the element missing from Whalen's statement to Burke--the identity of her "boyfriend." Without competent evidence identifying the defendant as Whalen's boyfriend, the Commonwealth could not prevail.

Discussion. The judge did not abuse his discretion in ruling that Burke's testimony of what Whalen said to him was admissible as a spontaneous exclamation. When Burke came upon Whalen, the positioning of her car and her physical appearance bespoke someone who was frightened and in turmoil because of a recent event. Here, as in Commonwealth v. Fuller, 399 Mass. 678, 683, 506 N.E.2d 852 (1987), "the judge acted within his discretion in determining that the statements were made in circumstances which reasonably negated premeditation and were sufficiently proximate to the event so as to be admissible as spontaneous utterances." Contrast Commonwealth v. Joubert, 38 Mass.App.Ct. 943, 945, 647 N.E.2d 1238 (1995), where there were insufficient indicia of reliability. See Liacos, Massachusetts Evidence § 8.4.1 (6th ed. 1994).

Whalen's statement to Burke, however, did not identify the defendant, or anyone else, as her boyfriend. Thus, the pivotal question at the trial was whether Whalen's affidavit and the 209A order were competent to identify the defendant as the "boyfriend" referred to in Whalen's statement to Burke.

Whalen's affidavit, which asserts that the defendant physically abused her, is hearsay, and the Commonwealth concedes this to be so. To the extent that the affidavit contains assertions that are merely cumulative of Whalen's statements to Burke, which were admissible, the point is of no consequence. What is of consequence is whether those statements in Whalen's affidavit which identify the defendant as her assailant, and the ensuing service of the 209A order upon him, provided competent evidence for the judge to find that the defendant was Whalen's boyfriend. We think not.

The Commonwealth argues, without citation to authority, that the judge could properly consider the affidavit and 209A order for the limited purpose of showing that the defendant was the "boyfriend" who assaulted her. Given that the identity of the "boyfriend" was the live issue at the trial, and that evidence that the defendant was the boyfriend was essential for his conviction, the use of the affidavit to resolve the identification issue would mean that the affidavit would be used, impermissibly, for the truth of the matter asserted therein.

The Commonwealth also argues that the 209A order was admissible by way of judicial notice (which the judge may have taken, although the record is not entirely clear), as well as under the official records exception to the hearsay rule. Again, the purpose of the evidence was to resolve the factual issue of the assailant's identity, but judicial notice, which is ordinarily reserved for matters of common knowledge and "matters verifiable by authoritative sources," ³ cannot be taken of material factual issues that can only be decided by the fact finder on competent evidence. Commonwealth v. Kingsbury, 378 Mass. 751, 754-755, 393 N.E.2d 391 (1979).

Nor is the official records exception to the hearsay rule available to the Commonwealth. The identification of the defendant in the 209A order is merely a replication of Whalen's assertion in her affidavit that the defendant was the abuser, and it cannot be regarded as a record of a "primary fact made by a public officer in the performance of official duty," as required by the rule. See Liacos, Massachusetts Evidence § 8.13.1, at 504.

Similarly, Officer Eysie's testimony regarding the service of the 209A order upon the defendant, while not hearsay, provides no help to the Commonwealth. Without the admissibility of the antecedent information in Whalen's affidavit and the accompanying complaint in which Whalen names the defendant as her abuser, evidence of the service of the 209A order upon the defendant is relevant only upon the theory that the judge would be entitled to infer that service was made upon the defendant because Whalen had identified him in her affidavit and complaint. In a remarkably similar case, Mitchell v. Hoke, 745 F.Supp. 874, 876 (E.D.N.Y.1990), ⁴ Justice Jack B. Weinstein wrote that such reasoning presents "a classic example of indirect hearsay." Paraphrasing Judge Weinstein: the acts of Officer Eysie (serving the 209A order) leads by direct inference to the precise words of Whalen. Since Whalen's credibility must be evaluated to determine the probative force of this line of identification proof, the hearsay rule applies. Ibid. This analysis is hardly new. See Commonwealth v. Fagan, 108 Mass. 471, 472 (1871). See also Liacos, Massachusetts Evidence § 8.1, at 436 ("The principal reason for the hearsay rule is that extrajudicial statements, unlike statements in court, are not immediately tested by cross-examination"). Compare Commonwealth v. Seminara, 20 Mass.App.Ct. 789, 796, 483 N.E.2d 92 (1985) (Commonwealth may not bootstrap into a category of substantive evidence extrajudicial identification of a photo where witness not asked to confirm the identification at the trial).

To sum up, the Commonwealth fails to refer us to any authority, and we know of none, which would permit the judge to consider the prior identification evidence appearing only in Whalen's extrajudicial affidavit, absent any supporting testimony, as competent evidence of the required identification of Whalen's "boyfriend." ⁵ While it is true that an extrajudicial identification may, in certain circumstances, be admitted as probative evidence, see Commonwealth v. Daye, 393 Mass. 55, 61, 469 N.E.2d 483 (1984); Liacos, Massachusetts Evidence § 10.1, at 609, admissibility in such circumstances continues only so long as the defendant's due process and confrontation rights are satisfied. ⁶ Commonwealth v. Torres, 367 Mass. 737, 739 & n. 2, ...