Com. v. Lamoureux
| Decision Date | 29 January 1965 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Robert F. LAMOUREUX. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Harold J. Betzold, Jr., Whitman, for defendant.
A. Stanley Littlefield, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.
Before WILKINS, C. J., and WHITTEMORE, CUTTER, KIRK & REARDON, JJ.
The defendant at his trial, held subject to G.L. c. 278, §§ 33A-33G, was found guilty and sentenced on indictments charging him with the robbery and kidnapping of a Miss Harvey at Brockton on November 15, 1963. His appeal assigns nineteen errors. We have the exhibits and transcript of testimony.
We summarize the evidence which is pertinent to our consideration of the alleged errors. On November 15, 1963, following her return from her place of employment as a secretary, Miss Harvey parked her car at the West Shopping Center in Brockton, went to a cleaning establishment located there, picked up a coat and returned to her car. It was dusk. After she had seated herself behind the wheel, she turned around and saw a man partly in the right rear door. He pointed a gun at her. His hair was dark, and he wore a red jacket and dark pants. He got in the back seat of the car. He told her not to look at him again, to drive as he said, and she would not get hurt. Thereafter, for what seemed an hour, he gave her driving directions, mainly in the streets of Brockton, and apparently without any destination in mind. She was afraid. At one point, on Linwood Street in Brockton, she felt something pressing against her shoulder, and he asked her where her money was. She gave him her handbag, and he took her wallet from it. She would never forget his voice. There was talk about when she would be able to go home. He got into the front seat. She looked quickly at him. She told him that she felt sick and wanted to stop the car. Without directions from the man, she stopped the car on Main Street in North Easton near the intersection of Route 138, where there was a break in the wall surrounding Stonehill College. There were woods behind the wall. Her home was about a half mile away. He ordered her to drive on because the spot was too bright for him to get out. She refused. He put his left arm around her neck and began to beat her with an object--she thought it was the gun--in his right hand. She struggled, sounded the horn with her right hand, opened the door with her left hand and ran to a nearby house. The police came. Miss Harvey was hysterical; her face and hair were covered with blood. She was taken to the hospital where she remained ten days. Colored photographs were taken of her face and head.
The police found the car at the scene later in the evening. There was an imitation automatic pistol on the front seat. In the woods near by, about 150 yards from the car, they found a bright red jacket with stains on the left sleeve. One week later two boys found a pair of dark pants and a sweater in the woods, at a point twenty-five feet in from the road, and about 100 yards from the intersection of Main Street and Route 138. A cleaner's tag on the inside back seam of the trousers was traced to the owner of the cleaning shop. It bore data given to the cleaner by an unknown person on October 8, 1963, when the pants were brought to the shop. The person gave the name Brown and a stated address in Brockton. A Mrs. Brown, who lived at the stated address, had not seen her husband for three years. She knew the defendant. He had stayed at her apartment over weekends for 'about a year or so.' She had last seen the defendant on September 6, 1963. The sweater looked familiar to her; it was similar to the one the defendant wore, but she could not identify the pants or the jacket.
Miss Harvey identified the defendant as the man who got into her car. She recognized his features and his voice. She identified the gun as the defendant's and the red jacket as the one worn by him on November 15, 1963, and they were admitted in evidence without objection.
We consider the assignments of error which, for the most part, relate to rulings made by the judge during the trial.
The denial of the defendant's motion to have the jury take a view of the wooded area where the clothing was found was within the discretion of the judge. G.L. c. 234, § 35. No citation of cases is necessary.
There was no error in admitting the testimony of a qualified expert from the State police that the stains on the jacket, sweater and pants were human blood. The expert was unable to identify the blood type. Other evidence in the case could fairly lead to the conclusion that the blood was Miss Harvey's. Commonwealth v. Moore, 323 Mass. 70, 74, 80 N.E.2d 24.
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