Com. v. Martin

• Decision Date: 12 May 2005
• Citation: 827 N.E.2d 198,444 Mass. 213
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Donald MARTIN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

827 N.E.2d 198

444 Mass. 213

COMMONWEALTH v. Donald MARTIN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued December 8, 2004.

Decided May 12, 2005.

Christopher Pohl, Assistant District Attorney (Timothy Pomarole with him) for the Commonwealth.

Debra S. Krupp, Committee for Public Counsel Services, Boston (Joan C. Stanley, Milton, with her) for the defendant.

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

CORDY, J.

The question presented in this case is whether the failure to give Miranda warnings to a suspect in custody requires suppression of physical evidence derived from an unwarned statement he made in response to police interrogation. Prior to the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630, 124 S.Ct. 2620, 159 L.Ed.2d 667 (2004) (Patane), the answer (at least in Massachusetts) would clearly have been "yes." We have consistently held that statements obtained in violation of the principles laid down in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), are not admissible in evidence themselves, and may not properly be used to secure additional evidence for use at trial. See Commonwealth v. White, 374 Mass. 132, 138-139, 371 N.E.2d 777 (1977), aff'd, 439 U.S. 280, 99 S.Ct. 712, 58 L.Ed.2d 519 (1978) (statements obtained in absence of intelligent and voluntary waiver of Miranda rights may not be considered in determining probable cause to obtain search warrant); Commonwealth v. Haas, 373 Mass. 545, 369 N.E.2d 692 (1977), S.C., 398 Mass. 806, 501 N.E.2d 1154 (1986) (unwarned statements solicited from suspect in custody may not be considered in determining probable cause for arrest and search incident to it). "To hold otherwise would, in effect, sanction the initial violations of constitutional guaranties.... The need to prevent such violations from escaping review underlies the so called `fruit of the poisonous tree' doctrine. ..." Commonwealth v. White, supra at 139, 371 N.E.2d 777. See Commonwealth v. DiMarzio, 436 Mass. 1012, 1013, 767 N.E.2d 1059 (2002) (marijuana located as result of unwarned statement made after defendant placed in custody properly suppressed as "fruit of the poisonous tree"); Commonwealth v. Barros, 56 Mass.App.Ct. 675, 678-679, 779 N.E.2d 693 (2002) (evidence found in defendant's bedroom as result of unwarned custodial questioning suppressed).

In Patane, supra at 2628, quoting Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 443-444, 120 S.Ct. 2326, 147 L.Ed.2d 405 (2000), the Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, held that, while "unwarned statements may not be used in evidence in the prosecution's case in chief," "the Self-Incrimination Clause ... is not implicated by the introduction at trial of physical evidence resulting" from such statements so long as they were not the product of improper coercion (i.e., were "voluntary"). Patane, supra at 2624. Consequently, the Court concluded that the exclusion of physical evidence obtained in violation of Miranda principles is not required by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

While the reasoning in our cases regarding the application of the exclusionary rule to evidence derived from Miranda violations has been grounded principally in Fifth Amendment jurisprudence, the protections afforded the privilege against self-incrimination by the Miranda rule and its application also extend to rights protected by art. 12 of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution. Commonwealth v. Snyder, 413 Mass. 521, 531, 597 N.E.2d 1363 (1992) ("Miranda warnings furnish information about State constitutional rights as well as rights contained in the Constitution of the United States"). Because we conclude that the Supreme Court's construction of the Miranda rule, which was intended to secure the privilege against compelled incrimination in the context of inherently coercive custodial interrogations, is no longer adequate to safeguard the parallel but broader protections afforded Massachusetts citizens by art. 12, we adopt a common-law rule governing the admissibility of physical evidence obtained in these circumstances. Such evidence, if derived from unwarned statements where Miranda warnings would have been required by Federal law in order for them to be admissible, is presumptively excludable from evidence at trial as "fruit" of the improper failure to provide such warnings.

1. Background. The following facts are undisputed. On the morning of March 26, 2002, police were dispatched to an apartment in the Roxbury section of Boston following a "911" call from a person (complainant) who identified himself and claimed that a man living at that address had just threatened him with a gun. Based on the description provided by the complainant, the police determined that the person who had threatened him was probably Martin. After securing the building, the police attempted to get Martin to open his apartment door, but he refused. After nearly thirty minutes, a Boston detective convinced Martin to surrender, at which point he opened his apartment door, stepped into the hallway, and was handcuffed. Police then entered Martin's apartment and conducted a protective sweep. After confirming that no one else was there, the police left the apartment but remained outside. The complainant then positively identified Martin as the person who had threatened him.

Although clearly in custody at this point, Martin was not advised of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, supra. Rather, the detective explained that he would apply for a search warrant to find the firearm, but that if Martin wanted to expedite the process, he could tell the detective where the firearm was located. Martin responded to this entreaty by telling the detective that he had had problems with the complainant in the past. The detective responded by assuring Martin that the police "would look into that," but reiterated that his main concern was locating the firearm. Martin then told the detective that the firearm was in his bedroom closet. The detective entered the closet and found a loaded firearm in a "fanny pack" on the top shelf. At this point, another police officer read Martin his Miranda rights and formally placed him under arrest. He was subsequently indicted for assault by means of a dangerous weapon (firearm), unlawful possession of a firearm while being an armed career criminal, and unlawful possession of ammunition.¹

Martin filed a motion to suppress the firearm and ammunition on the basis that they were discovered during a warrantless search of his apartment conducted in violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. The Commonwealth conceded that Martin's unwarned statement to the detective could not be introduced against him at trial because he had been in custody at the time it was made. It argued, however, that the failure to administer Miranda warnings did not mean that Martin could not validly consent to the search of his closet, and the firearm recovered after his voluntary statement should therefore be admissible in evidence against him.

The judge allowed Martin's motion. In her ruling, she found that the police were justified in entering Martin's apartment, in arresting him as the assailant, and in conducting a protective sweep. She also found that Martin's unwarned statements had not been "coerc[ed]." However, relying on Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), the judge concluded that the firearm and ammunition should be suppressed as the "fruit" of unlawful questioning by the detective.

The Commonwealth sought reconsideration of the judge's order, contending that she had relied on Fifth Amendment grounds not advanced by the defendant and because she had failed to follow the Supreme Court's recent Patane decision.² The judge allowed Martin to amend his motion to include claims based on the Fifth Amendment and art. 12, and directed the parties to brief the issue whether Massachusetts law and art. 12 provided greater protection to Martin, in these circumstances, than the Fifth Amendment. After further argument, she reaffirmed her ruling, agreeing with the Commonwealth that under Patane the introduction of the firearm and ammunition in evidence would not violate the Fifth Amendment, but concluding that the greater protections provided by art. 12 required their suppression. The judge further opined that "the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine has never turned on what kind of evidence was seized as a result of a constitutional violation" (physical or testimonial), or which constitutional right had been violated, but rather "whether there is a close enough connection between the unconstitutional conduct and the evidence obtained as a result of that conduct, such that the evidence must be excluded from trial." The Commonwealth filed a petition for interlocutory review, and a single justice allowed the request and ordered that the appeal be entered in this court.

2. Discussion. The core protection afforded by the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment is a prohibition on compelling a criminal defendant to be a "witness against himself."³ Similarly, one of the core protections of art. 12 is a prohibition on compelling any person to "furnish evidence against himself."⁴ "[I]n Miranda, the Court concluded that the possibility of coercion inherent in custodial interrogations unacceptably raises the risk that a suspect's privilege against self-incrimination might be violated." Patane, supra at 2627. Consequently, it announced a constitutionally based rule, prophylactic in nature, requiring that warnings be given to suspects in custody as a prerequisite to the admissibility of any statements they might make as the result of their interrogation. Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 435, 120...