Com. v. Quigley
| Decision Date | 14 March 1984 |
| Citation | 462 N.E.2d 92,391 Mass. 461 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Mark E. QUIGLEY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Peter G. DeGelleke, Bedford, for defendant.
Stephen R. Kaplan, Sp. Asst. Dist. Atty. (Phillip L. Weiner, Asst. Dist. Atty., with him), for the Commonwealth.
Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, ABRAMS, NOLAN and O'CONNOR, JJ.
The defendant, Mark E. Quigley, was indicted for the murder of Lawrence W. Tremblay, who died as a result of an incident on March 7, 1980. After a trial by jury, he was found guilty of murder in the second degree on November 24, 1980. His appeal was entered in the Appeals Court. A motion for new trial was filed on June 4, 1982, and was heard on September 7, 1982, and on November 15, 1982. The motion was denied with a memorandum of decision filed on November 23, 1982. The defendant's motion to consolidate his direct appeal with the appeal from the denial of the motion for new trial was allowed. We granted the defendant's application for direct appellate review.
The defendant claims to be aggrieved by the following errors: (1) the denial of his motion to suppress an inculpatory statement; (2) an intemperate final argument by the prosecutor; and (3) misapplication of the felony-murder rule in the judge's charge, and its effect on the Commonwealth's burden of proof of malice.
The jury could have found that at or about 1 P.M. on March 7, 1980, the defendant went to a bar in Taunton with Robert Jones and Gerry Shaw. The victim was at the bar. After playing pool for a while, the defendant, the victim, Jones, and Shaw went to Middleboro in the defendant's motor vehicle where they picked up Lisa Burrell, Jones' girl friend. On the return trip to Taunton, they stopped at a package store where the victim bought some beer. All the men had been drinking except Jones. The victim and Shaw, who were in the back seat, started to quarrel about a woman to whom both had become attentive. In an area of Taunton known for its strawberry fields, the defendant stopped the automobile after learning that the victim had vomited on the rear seat. He was angry and threatened reprisal, but at the moment the defendant was more concerned about a defect under the hood of his automobile. While he and Jones examined the engine, the victim and Shaw had a fist fight at the rear of the automobile. The victim was knocked to the ground. The defendant went to the rear of the automobile, picked up the victim and hit him in the head. As the victim lay on the ground, the defendant kicked him in the temple and cheekbone, then dropped to his knees and delivered approximately a dozen blows to the victim's head. Shaw and Jones finally persuaded him to stop. To keep the interior of the automobile from becoming any more soiled (the victim was covered with blood), they dumped the victim, who was then mumbling, in the trunk. He moaned intermittently while the defendant drove the others to his apartment. The volume of the automobile radio drowned out the victim's moans. After driving into Taunton to a friend's apartment, they went to St. Joseph's cemetery in Raynham and carried the victim to a place near a gravestone. He was still alive. Before leaving the cemetery, the defendant decided to take whatever money the victim had and returned to the victim, took his wallet, removed the money, put the wallet back in the victim's pocket, and kicked the victim a few times. They drove to the defendant's apartment. It was then about 4 P.M. They ate supper and had a party.
On the following morning, March 8, 1980, at approximately 7:45 A.M., the Raynham police received a telephone call about a body at St. Joseph's cemetery. The police went to the cemetery and on finding the wallet which contained the victim's driver's license, among other things, identified the body. As a result of their investigation, the police arrested the defendant later in the morning.
There was evidence from the testimony of the pathologist that the victim might have survived the multiple beatings and kickings if he had been given medical attention instead of being abandoned in the cemetery.
1. Motion to suppress. At the suppression hearing, the police officers who drove the defendant to the police station and interrogated him testified, as did the defendant and his father, who came to the police station and remained there during the interrogation. In his findings, the judge noted that the "credibility of the various witnesses seems to be a critical issue for my determination." It follows inescapably from his denial of the defendant's motion to suppress that he believed the officer who testified that the defendant was given Miranda warnings, understood them, and waived them voluntarily and intelligently, thereafter giving an inculpatory statement. See Commonwealth v. Correia, 381 Mass. 65, 76, 407 N.E.2d 1216 (1980). In the absence of subsidiary findings on the issue of credibility, we assume that the judge's determination was adverse to the losing party (in this case the defendant). The judge's ultimate conclusion, however, may be reviewed because it involves the correctness of the application of constitutional principles to the facts. See Commonwealth v. Moon, 380 Mass. 751, 756, 405 N.E.2d 947, (1980) quoting Commonwealth v. Murphy, 362 Mass. 542, 550-551, 289 N.E.2d 571 (Hennessey, J., concurring). See Commonwealth v. Haas, 373 Mass. 545, 550, 369 N.E.2d 692 (1977). There was no error in the denial of the defendant's motion to suppress.
2. Prosecutor's closing argument. The defendant complains (timely objections were made) that the prosecutor violated the Code of Professional Responsibility, S.J.C. Rule 3:07, DR 7-106(C)(4), as amended, 382 Mass. 787 (1981), which prohibits a lawyer from asserting "his personal opinion ... as to the guilt or innocence of an accused." The assistant district attorney stopped short of expressing his opinion. He suggested to the jury that he had met his burden of proof by producing sufficient evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This approach is within permissible bounds. Though his rhetoric may have been self-serving, it was not reversible error. See Commonwealth v. Bradshaw, 385 Mass. 244, 271-274, 431 N.E.2d 880 (1982).
The defendant's second argument concerns the prosecutor's appeal to the jury's emotions and prejudices. As an example, the prosecutor pointed out the grim irony of the victim's final resting place, St. Joseph's cemetery, the same place in which he was kicked, robbed, and finally died. We have repeatedly warned against emotional appeals and argument designed to excite the jury's prejudice. See Commonwealth v. Shelley, 374 Mass. 466, 470-471, 373 N.E.2d 951 (1978). However, the argument was not impermissibly emotional and it was based entirely on the evidence.
Finally, the defendant suggests that there was error in permitting the prosecutor to demonstrate how the defendant knelt down to beat the victim, but the record does not reflect the demonstration. Though we do not wish to encourage such histrionics (better left to the stage), we see no reversible error because the judge clearly and firmly instructed the jury to return a verdict based only on the evidence. He warned in detail and with specificity that what the attorneys said or did or what he said about the testimony was not evidence. See Commonwealth v. Atkins, 386 Mass. 593, 606, 436 N.E.2d 1203 (1982).
3. Judge's instruction on malice and felony-murder. The judge instructed the jury on those forms of murder in the first degree which require proof of deliberately premeditated malice aforethought and extreme atrocity. He also instructed them on the elements of murder in the second degree, of manslaughter, and of assault and battery. The defendant filed no requests for instructions and at the close of the charge he objected only to portions which are not here material. There were no objections to those parts of the charge relevant to the issues raised on appeal, but the defendant argued and the judge treated...
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