Com. v. Seabrooks

• Decision Date: 21 July 1997
• Citation: 681 N.E.2d 1198,425 Mass. 507
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Sean SEABROOKS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1198

681 N.E.2d 1198

425 Mass. 507

COMMONWEALTH v. Sean SEABROOKS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,

Hampshire.

Argued May 5, 1997.

Decided July 21, 1997.

Richard M. Passalacqua, Boston, for defendant.

Judith Ellen Pietras, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Before WILKINS, C.J., and ABRAMS, LYNCH, O'CONNOR, GREANEY, FRIED and MARSHALL, JJ.

ABRAMS, Justice.

After trial by jury, the defendant, Sean Seabrooks, was convicted of murder in the first degree by reason of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty for the killing of his former female companion and their child. On appeal, the defendant argues that he was deprived of his right to present a full and fair defense by the judge's improper exclusion of evidence. The defendant argues that the excluded evidence was relevant and admissible to rebut hearsay evidence introduced by the Commonwealth. We agree. We reverse and remand for a new trial. Because there must be a retrial, we comment briefly on the defendant's claim that the judge should have instructed the jurors on voluntary manslaughter and insanity.

We summarize the evidence as follows. On the evening of January 11, 1993, a coworker of the defendant notified the Northhampton police that the defendant had telephoned to report that he would not be into work the following day. The defendant told the coworker that he had just killed his friend, Sherry Morton, and their infant child, Cedric Seabrooks. The defendant started crying and said that he had "really 'F'-ed up."

Police officers went to Morton's apartment and found the two victims on the bedroom floor. The hilt of a knife was protruding from Morton's cheekbone. Forensic examination revealed that she had been stabbed more than fifty times. Forty-two stab wounds on her shoulders, arms, and hands indicated that she vigorously attempted to defend herself. Cedric Seabrooks was lying next to his mother. He had been stabbed eleven or twelve times.

At approximately the same time, the defendant's father notified Springfield police officers that the defendant may have seriously hurt his friend, Sherry Morton, and their child, Cedric. The responding officers saw the defendant walking along the street. The officers called to the defendant. He changed direction, but kept walking and talking to himself. He was repeating statements such as "it's over," that "they were gone," that "it was too late," and he mentioned a knife. For their safety, the officers asked the defendant the location of the knife. The defendant replied that the knife was in Morton's head. The officers tried to ascertain the victims' address so they could dispatch an ambulance. The defendant was only partially responsive. After repeated inquiries, the defendant gave Morton's address. The officers then took the defendant into custody.

At the police station, the defendant related his account of the evening's events. The defendant said that he and Morton recently had separated. He went to Morton's apartment that evening to play with his child and to give Morton some money for child support. The defendant said that Morton accused him of being intoxicated, they began arguing, and she told him to leave. Morton told the defendant that he would never see his child again. She tried to call the police. The defendant said that he "just couldn't take it anymore," and he grabbed the phone and pulled it off the wall. He said that he "freaked out," "lost control," and grabbed a knife from the dishwasher. While waving the knife at Morton, he accidently cut the child. The defendant apologized to Morton, but she was screaming at him. The defendant admitted that he then ran after the victims into the bedroom and stabbed them. He said that he stabbed Morton only three or four times, and the child once.

The defendant told the police that, after the killings, he attempted to commit suicide. He brought several electrical appliances into the bathroom and plugged them into the outlet, but none of the cords would reach into the bathtub. ¹ He then returned to the bedroom and made some telephone calls. He arranged to meet his cousin in Springfield, and he explained what he had done. She and the defendant then gathered with other friends and family members. The Springfield police were called and the defendant was arrested.

Several officers testified that, during that evening, the defendant did not appear to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Two officers did detect a faint odor of alcohol on the defendant's breath. After inquiry, the defendant explained that he had "two shots" of alcohol earlier in the evening, but said that he was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The defendant agreed to let the police search his car. They found an extension cord in the front seat.

The father described the defendant's behavior after the killings as follows. The defendant told his father that he had messed up, but he would not give complete answers to his father's ensuing questions. The defendant was "working his hands up and down," and he "didn't make any sense ... wasn't himself ... looked very incoherent, nervous, like he had no control over himself." The defendant's eyes were "real sharp and bright like he was out of it." The father also said that he did not detect any alcohol on the defendant or "sense any intoxication."

A. Excluded evidence. The Commonwealth introduced evidence from a friend of the victim that, in September, 1991, she saw several bruises on Morton. The witness said that Morton told her that the defendant inflicted those injuries. She drove Morton to the police station so that Morton could take out a criminal complaint against the defendant. Prior to this statement being admitted, defense counsel objected for the reason that the statement was hearsay. ² Defense counsel also informed the judge that he had evidence that Morton's statement to this witness (and to the police) was false and that Morton later retracted the hearsay statement under oath at the trial on the criminal charges. He alerted the judge that, if the Commonwealth's witness was permitted to testify that the defendant was the source of Morton's injuries, the defendant would call a witness who heard Morton retract that statement during the criminal trial and while under oath. The judge overruled the defendant's objections and allowed the Commonwealth to introduce the victim's statement, not to prove its truth, but to show the relationship between the parties and "their state of mind." ³

As promised, during the defendant's direct case, the defendant offered testimony from his former defense counsel on the earlier criminal charges. The defendant made an offer of proof that, in private conversation with prior defense counsel and then later, under oath at trial, the witness heard Morton recant her previous statement that the defendant was the source of her injuries. The Commonwealth objected on the ground that the proffered testimony of the private conversation with prior defense counsel and his recitation as to the victim's testimony in the earlier court proceeding was "unadulterated" hearsay. The judge excluded the evidence. Because the Commonwealth improperly was permitted to introduce the victim's hearsay statement as to the source of her injuries, it was error not to let the defendant present evidence of the victim's recantation of that allegation. ⁴

The judge admitted the victim's statement for the limited purpose of showing the hostile relationship and state of mind of the victim and of the defendant. "An extrajudicial statement of a declarant is not ordinarily admissible if it is a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed." Commonwealth v. Lowe, 391 Mass. 97, 104, 461 N.E.2d 192, cert. denied, 469 U.S. 840, 105 S.Ct. 143, 83 L.Ed.2d 82 (1984), citing Shepard v. United States, 290 U.S. 96, 54 S.Ct. 22, 78 L.Ed. 196 (1933). See Commonwealth v. Andrade, 422 Mass. 236, 239, 661 N.E.2d 1308 (1996) (murder victim's statements that defendant had beaten her and engaged in other misconduct held hearsay and inadmissible); Commonwealth v. Zagranski, 408 Mass. 278, 282-283, 558 N.E.2d 933 (1990) (victim's statements held inadmissible under the state-of-mind exception because statements concerned only past events).

The victim's statement at issue did not fall within the state-of-mind exception to the hearsay rule. Lowe, supra at 104-106, 461 N.E.2d 192, citing Commonwealth v. Borodine, 371 Mass. 1, 353 N.E.2d 649 (1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1049, 97 S.Ct. 760, 50 L.Ed.2d 765 (1977). See Commonwealth v. Qualls, 425 Mass. 163, 167, 680 N.E.2d 61 (1997) ("The state-of mind exception to the hearsay rule calls for admission of evidence of a murder victim's state of mind as proof of the defendant's motive to kill the victim when ... there also is evidence that the defendant was aware of that state of mind at the time of the crime and would be likely to respond to it"). In Lowe and Borodine, the murder victim's statements were declarations of future intent to break off a relationship with the defendant. There, the jury could infer that the victim communicated that intention to the defendant, and the statements were material on the issue of the defendant's motive for killing the victim. Those circumstances are not presented here. ⁵

The Commonwealth misconstrues our case law as generally allowing the admission of hearsay statements of past violence or misconduct for the purpose of showing the "hostile relationship between the defendant and the victim." See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Hunter, 416 Mass. 831, 837, 626 N.E.2d 873 (1994); Commonwealth v. Gil, 393 Mass. 204, 215, 217-218, 471 N.E.2d 30 (1984). An examination of our cases reveals that we have not construed the state-of-mind exception to sweep so broadly. Hearsay statements which relate the defendant's prior violence or misconduct are probative of the relationship only if they are considered as...