Com. v. Libran

• Decision Date: 23 August 1989
• Citation: 405 Mass. 634,543 N.E.2d 5
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Ramon LIBRAN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 5

543 N.E.2d 5

405 Mass. 634

COMMONWEALTH v. Ramon LIBRAN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Suffolk.

Argued May 1, 1989.

Decided Aug. 23, 1989.

Daniel J. O'Connell, III, Boston, for defendant.

Laura Callahan Burnham, Asst. Dist. Atty., for Com.

Before LIACOS, C.J., and ABRAMS, NOLAN, LYNCH and O'CONNOR, JJ.

NOLAN, Justice.

The defendant, Ramon Libran, appeals from his convictions of murder in the first degree and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. The defendant conceded that he fatally stabbed Michael Maronski and was involved in attacks on two other people, but contended that he was not criminally responsible for his actions. The defendant was accompanied the night of the murder by three young men (codefendants), who were tried with him as joint venturers. ¹

The defendant asserts error in (1) the denial of his motion to suppress; (2) the admission of evidence of his prior misconduct; (3) the denial of his motion to sever his trial from that of his codefendants and (4) the judge's refusal to instruct the jury that they could consider evidence of mental impairment in determining whether the defendant had acted with malice. The defendant filed a motion for a new trial in the Superior court. He also moved for a new trial in this court. The motion for a new trial was not acted on in the Superior court. We referred the matter to a single justice of this court on whose recommendation we issued an order that the defendant's motion "is to be considered with the appeal presently pending" before the court. The defendant asks this court to exercise its power under G.L. c. 278, § 33E (1986 ed.). We affirm the convictions and decline to exercise our power under G.L. c. 278, § 33E.

We summarize the evidence. On December 21, 1984, there was a function at an American Legion hall in Chelsea. Vincent Russo (Russo) testified that a fight broke out there between the defendant and Vincent's brother, Victor. Russo said he pulled the defendant away from Victor and then the defendant began fighting with him. Russo further testified that the defendant waved a jackknife at him, but that the defendant later passed the knife to a friend before the police arrived. A police officer "started to frisk," the defendant, but found no weapon.

The next evening, an automobile driven by Leo Cunningham "cut off" an automobile driven by Richard Cipollone, forcing Cipollone to stop his automobile. Deborah Cronin and Dennis Bankus, two occupants of Cipollone's automobile, testified to essentially the same story: four young men piled out of Cunningham's vehicle and grouped themselves around the front of Cipollone's automobile. The defendant approached the driver's side of the vehicle and asked if one of the passengers was the "kid" he had fought at the American Legion hall the night before. After Bankus denied being there, the defendant said, "Sorry, wrong people." Then, according to Cronin, he said to Michael Riley, "These aren't the kids we are looking for, and when we find them, they are going to pay for it."

At 11 P.M., Leo Cunningham drove to meet his girl friend, Margaret McClellan, at work. McClellan said that the defendant, Michael Riley, and Louis Riley were in the back seat. The four young men were talking about a fight the night before and about finding the people who had jumped the defendant in the fight. McClellan testified that the defendant on one occasion and Louis Riley on another stopped a pedestrian to ask if he knew where Stephen Meiggs or Vincent Russo were. The second individual told them the location of a party, so they proceeded there.

Richard Mucci told the jury that he was just leaving a family party on Burma Road when Cunningham maneuvered his automobile in front of Mucci's. The defendant and his three codefendants approached Mucci. The defendant grabbed Mucci by the throat with one hand and squeezed hard. With his other hand, the defendant stuck a knife against Mucci's stomach. Louis Riley pinned one of Mucci's arms behind him and held a small knife against his cheek. The defendant said, "Meiggs, Maronski, Borum, and Westmoreland, tell these guys I want to kill them, whoever I find first I am going to kill them." Mucci answered, "You know where they hang, You seen them before...."

At approximately midnight, the defendant and the codefendants were driving along Webster Street when the defendant told Cunningham to stop because he had spotted Meiggs. Meiggs was walking down Webster Street with his friends, Christopher Borum and Michael Maronski. Meiggs testified that four people got out of Cunningham's automobile. Two of the four started coming toward Meiggs, Borum, and Maronski. Borum and Maronski began to retreat while Meiggs stood where he was.

Meiggs testified he saw the defendant run after Borum and Maronski. Borum said he turned as he was running and saw the defendant holding a knife in one hand, while he grabbed and pulled at Maronski's jacket with the other hand. He told the jury that Maronski pleaded with the defendant to let him alone; Maronski was able to squirm away from the defendant and began running again. Borum ran into his house and called the police. Soon after, he saw Maronski coming toward his house, no longer wearing a jacket, and bleeding profusely. Maronski died from a massive acute hemorrhage caused by a stab wound perforating his liver and right lung.

Meiggs testified that he and Louis Riley stared at one another until the defendant came running back toward them, with a knife in his hand. Someone punched Meiggs in the face and he stumbled back against a house. Then Louis Riley sliced Meiggs's left cheek with a knife. Meiggs said he did not see where the two other individuals who exited the automobile had gone.

According to McClellan, Leo Cunningham yelled for the other defendants to return to his vehicle. Libran had cut his hand and wrapped his jacket around it. When Libran got into the vehicle he told the others he had stabbed someone five or six times. McClellan heard Michael Riley say, "I don't believe you. You shouldn't have stabbed him."

Cunningham drove the defendant and the Riley brothers to their street and they all departed from the vehicle. Louis Riley and the defendant then went to Massachusetts General Hospital for treatment of the defendant's hand wound. Meiggs was at the same hospital, where his face wound was being stitched. A Chelsea police sergeant was also at the hospital, responding to a complaint that "there was a second stab victim up there." Meiggs recognized Riley and Libran and told the sergeant. The defendant and Riley were arrested at the hospital.

Libran was tried as the principal actor in the deliberately premeditated murder of Maronski and the assault by means of a dangerous weapon on Mucci. For the assault on Meiggs, he was charged on a joint-venture theory.

1. Motion to suppress. The defendant moved to suppress his statements to police, made after his arrest, and after receiving the Miranda warnings. He offered a psychiatrist's testimony that the defendant was mentally retarded and suffering from a combination of schizophrenic reaction and a manic depressive condition at the time of the incident and thus lacked the mental capacity to make a voluntary and intelligent waiver of his Miranda rights. The defendant also offered Cunningham's testimony that the group had been drinking beer and peppermint schnapps and were "pretty buzzed."

After the police informed the defendant that he was charged with assault with intent to kill and gave him the Miranda warnings, the defendant said that he was stabbed by three people who stopped him as he walked along Cherry Street. Louis Riley, who was kept in a separate room, told police the same story. When the police learned that Maronski had died, they informed Louis that he was now charged with murder and advised him again of his rights. Louis changed his story and told police that the defendant had stabbed Maronski. He admitted that he cut Meiggs's face. The police then brought the defendant back for questioning, advised him again of his rights and told him that he was charged with murder. The defendant then declined to speak, and asked for an attorney. Later that morning, while being fingerprinted, the defendant said, "You better get the other two, I don't want to take this whole rap myself.... [i]t was Louis' brother, Michael, and the other guy was Leo."

The Commonwealth did not rebut the testimony on the defendant's mental capacity at the hearing on the motion to suppress. However, even if the judge accepted as a fact that a defendant was suffering from mental retardation and mental impairment, it does not follow that the judge must rule that the statements were involuntary per se. See Commonwealth v. Vazquez, 387 Mass. 96, 100, 438 N.E.2d 856 (1982). A statement is inadmissible if it would not have been obtained but for the effects of the confessor's mental disease. Id., quoting Gibbs v. Warden of Ga. State Penitentiary, 450 F.Supp. 242, 244 (M.D.Ga.1978), aff'd, 589 F.2d 1113 (5th Cir.1979). After a hearing, the judge concluded that any mental impairment that the defendant suffered did not impede his ability to waive his Miranda rights and make a voluntary statement. The judge found that the defendant understood his rights, that he appeared sober and composed when questioned and that his answers were clear and appropriate. The defendant did not manifest any bizarre demeanor or unusual behavior. The judge found that the defendant's first statement was exculpatory and virtually identical to an obviously fabricated statement given by Louis Riley. The judge found that, when the police told the defendant that Maronski had died, the defendant showed an awareness that speaking to the police could be harmful by choosing to remain silent and to seek an attorney's help.

In reviewing a judge's determination that a voluntary waiver was made, the judge's subsidiary findings will not...