Com. v. Leahy

Decision Date09 December 2005
PartiesCOMMONWEALTH v. Paul J. LEAHY.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Ruth Greenberg, Swampscott, for the defendant.

Robert C. Thompson, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., IRELAND, SPINA, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.

CORDY, J.

Paul J. Leahy was convicted of the brutal stabbing and murder of Alexandra Zapp.1 The crime occurred shortly after 4 A.M. on July 18, 2002, in the women's bathroom of a rest area along Route 24 in Bridgewater. Leahy was arrested at the scene and later confessed. Media coverage of the crime was extensive. Some of that coverage focused on Leahy's criminal history, which was also extensive.

In his appeal Leahy contends that (1) his confession should have been suppressed because neither it nor the waiver of his Miranda rights was voluntary, police questioning was improperly reinstated after he had asserted his right to remain silent, and his statutory right to make a telephone call was not honored; (2) the judge's refusal to exclude jurors who had been exposed to any media publicity concerning his case denied him a fair trial by an impartial jury and impermissibly diminished or constrained his ability to use peremptory challenges; and (3) the judge's decision not to repeat the charge to the jury shortly after they had begun their deliberations violated his right to be tried by a jury unconfused about the law which they were to apply. We conclude that these claims have no merit. In addition, our review of the case pursuant to G.L. c. 278, § 33E, has not revealed any reason to order a new trial or reduce the jury's murder verdict.

1. Background. According to his confession, which was admitted in evidence, on July 17, 2002, Leahy was working the 10 P.M. to 6 A.M. shift at the Burger King restaurant adjacent to a well-known rest area on Route 24. Its public facilities are open twenty-four hours a day. Leahy saw the victim around 4 A.M., when she entered the building to use the women's bathroom. Considering whether to rob her, Leahy took out his knife and walked toward the bathroom. When the victim opened the door to leave, she came face to face with him and began to scream. Leahy forced her back into the bathroom and attempted to cover her mouth with his hand. A battle ensued, during which the victim told Leahy that she had been stabbed. The fight seemed to subside. Leahy went to the sink to wash his hands and asked the victim why she was "doing this" when all he wanted was to rob her. The victim suggested that they pretend Leahy rescued her from another assailant, but he responded that no one would believe such a story. The victim then tried to run for the bathroom door, but Leahy caught her, dragged her back to the sink area and stabbed her again. Leahy claimed that he thought he stabbed her twice more in the forearm. An autopsy revealed, however, that the victim had been stabbed and slashed twenty-six times. Any one of five of the stab wounds would have been fatal.

After stabbing her, Leahy dragged the victim into a stall, picked up her wallet from the floor, and again began to wash the blood off his hands and arms. At this point, a State police lieutenant, who had heard muffled screams and at least two thuds while in the adjacent men's room and observed drops of blood just outside the door to the women's room, opened the door. The victim's blood was visible throughout the bathroom. When the officer demanded to know what was going on, Leahy responded, "I lost it. I lost it." Leahy was taken into custody and read the Miranda warnings. Bridgewater police and emergency medical personnel arrived on the scene. After Leahy acknowledged that he understood his rights, he was asked whether he had any weapons on his person.2 Leahy told the officers that he had a knife in his back pocket. The knife was covered with the victim's blood.

Leahy was then transported to the Middleborough State police barracks. There his bloody clothes were taken as evidence. He spent approximately two hours handcuffed to a bench in the booking room, dressed in a hospital gown, and facing large print wall posters containing Miranda warnings and information regarding an arrestee's right to make a telephone call. When a State trooper assigned to the investigation arrived at the barracks, he asked Leahy whether he had read the Miranda poster, whether he understood his rights, and whether he had been previously arrested and had those rights explained to him. Leahy answered all of these questions in the affirmative. The trooper then asked Leahy if he wanted to speak with him, to which Leahy responded, "Not right now, in a minute. I need to figure some things out." The trooper noticed that Leahy had some cuts and scratches on his hands and the left side of his face and neck, and proceeded to prepare a report of these observations.

Approximately twenty minutes later the trooper approached Leahy and again said that "when you need to figure things out, it's good to talk to somebody else about them." Leahy agreed to talk to the officer, at which point he was uncuffed from the bench and brought to a conference room. Leahy was shown and read a State police Miranda waiver form and an arraignment waiver form. After indicating that he understood the rights described on the forms (including his right to make a telephone call) and after signing them, Leahy gave a statement confessing to having stabbed and robbed the victim. When Leahy finished his statement, crime scene investigators took swabs from his hands and the police summoned medical personnel to treat his cuts, which were open but not then bleeding.

Leahy's defense at trial was not identity, but that the Commonwealth's evidence was inadequate to establish that the killing was premeditated or that robbery (the predicate offense for felony-murder) was intended.

2. Motion to suppress. Leahy filed a motion to suppress his confession, alleging that he was questioned without being advised of his Miranda rights; that any waiver of those rights was not made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily; that his confession was not voluntary; and that the questioning violated his right to a prompt arraignment and his statutory right to a telephone call. Leahy's affidavit, filed in support of the motion, simply described the injuries to his hands, the fact that he was handcuffed in the middle of a police station, and his purported hope at the time that he would receive medical help for his pain after talking with the police. His memorandum focused solely on the voluntariness of his Miranda waiver and his confession. At the suppression hearing Leahy principally argued that the waiver of his Miranda rights was not voluntary. The motion judge (who was also the trial judge) made findings of fact and rulings of law and denied Leahy's motion. The judge concluded that both Leahy's Miranda waiver and his confession were voluntary. There was no error.

The Commonwealth bears the burden of establishing that a defendant's right to remain silent was "`voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently' waived." Commonwealth v. Hooks, 375 Mass. 284, 288, 376 N.E.2d 857 (1978), quoting Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). See Commonwealth v. Edwards, 420 Mass. 666, 669-670, 651 N.E.2d 398 (1995). In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we independently apply constitutional principles to the facts, but defer to the motion judge's findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous. Commonwealth v. Sicari, 434 Mass. 732, 746-747, 752 N.E.2d 684 (2001).

The judge found that Leahy had been fully informed of his Miranda rights on four occasions, that he understood those rights, and that he voluntarily signed the Miranda and prompt arraignment waiver forms. Commonwealth v. Magee, 423 Mass. 381, 387 n. 8, 668 N.E.2d 339 (1996) (signed waiver form on its own constitutes some evidence of voluntariness but is not dispositive). The judge also found that the State police did not condition summoning medical attention for Leahy's injuries on his waiving of rights or agreeing to make an incriminating statement. To the contrary, he noted that it was the police officer who noticed Leahy's injuries (and eventually called for medical attention), that Leahy did not complain of pain or ask for medical assistance for those injuries, and that the injuries consisted merely of cuts on Leahy's fingers and scratches on his neck.3 The judge further found that Leahy did not suffer emotional trauma due to his being handcuffed in the booking area and clothed in a hospital gown. Rather, the judge found that Leahy had no difficulty understanding or responding appropriately to police inquiries.4 The judge's factual findings are fully supported by the record, and amply support his conclusion that Leahy's waivers were knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made.

Leahy averred, however, that the trooper's suggestion that sometimes it helps to speak with someone if you want to get things straightened out was a false promise of police aid that overrode his ability voluntarily to waive his rights. See Commonwealth v. Edwards, supra at 671, 651 N.E.2d 398 (obtaining waiver by false statements is "disapproved of and may indicate that any subsequent waiver was made involuntarily"). The judge rejected this claim, and on the record before us, the argument falls far short. The statements made by the trooper were well within boundaries we have previously held to be acceptable. See Commonwealth v. Scoggins, 439 Mass. 571, 577, 789 N.E.2d 1080 (2003) (rejecting claim that false promises overbore defendant's free will based in part on fact that "officers stopped short of making an assurance that the defendant would benefit from admitting his guilt"); Commonwealth v. Meehan, 377 Mass. 552, 564, 387 N.E.2d 527 (1979...

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