Com. v. Smith

• Decision Date: 10 June 1992
• Citation: 412 Mass. 823,593 N.E.2d 1288
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. John F. SMITH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1288

593 N.E.2d 1288

412 Mass. 823

COMMONWEALTH v. John F. SMITH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Worcester.

Argued Feb. 4, 1992.

Decided June 10, 1992.

Charles K. Stephenson, Granby, for defendant.

Sean J. Gallagher, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Com.

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

GREANEY, Justice.

A jury in the Superior Court convicted the defendant on two indictments charging murder in the first degree. On appeal, the defendant argues that a custodial statement obtained from him by the police was erroneously admitted in evidence at his trial. We agree, and conclude that, where Federal law requires the administration of Miranda warnings to a person in custody, the admissibility of incriminatory statements obtained in the circumstances that appear here will, as matter of State common law, be governed by principles stated in Commonwealth v. Haas, 373 Mass. 545, 369 N.E.2d 692 (1977), S.C., 398 Mass. 806, 501 N.E.2d 1154 (1986). As a consequence, there must be a new trial. We also comment briefly on some issues that may arise at the retrial.

The relevant background to this case may be summarized as follows. The victims, Anna M. Duclos and Emile J. Duclos, lived in the town of Winchendon with their son, William, age nineteen. William Duclos had left high school after the eleventh grade and had started a business on the family property raising pigs and rabbits for sale; he frequently employed the defendant to do carpentry work and various odd jobs. The defendant was eighteen years of age and, like William Duclos, had left high school before graduating.

William Duclos had not been on friendly terms with his mother for several years, and relations between the defendant and Duclos' mother were also poor. ¹ Several weeks before the killings, a dispute arose between Duclos and his mother regarding the proceeds of an insurance policy, and relations between them consequently worsened. On the morning of May 22, 1989, Duclos testified, he and the defendant agreed on a plan to kill Anna and Emile Duclos that evening and "make it look like a robbery." The defendant testified that it was Duclos alone who decided to kill his parents that evening, that he did not think Duclos was serious, but nevertheless told him that it was not a good idea.

At approximately midnight on May 23, 1989, William Duclos went from his home to the residence of his grandmother next door. Appearing to be shocked and anguished, he woke her and told her his parents had been shot. She immediately made a telephone call to the police. The officers who responded to the call found the bodies of Anna and Emile Duclos in their bedroom; Anna Duclos had been shot twice and Emile Duclos three times. William Duclos was asked to come to the Winchendon police station to give a statement. There, he admitted to the police that he had participated in the shootings, but asserted that the defendant had actually fired the shots. The defendant, who was also requested to come to the station, gave a statement admitting that he was on the Duclos property at the time of the shootings, that he took a purse and wallet from the Duclos home and scattered papers on the first floor in order to create the appearance of a burglary, and that he helped William Duclos dispose of the guns and other evidence, but stated that Duclos alone had shot his parents. At the defendant's trial, his statement was read in evidence during the Commonwealth's case-in-chief. The issue of its admissibility is the defendant's primary ground of appeal.

The circumstances under which the defendant made the contested statement, as set forth in the hearing on his motion to suppress, are as follows. ² When William Duclos was brought in for questioning, he initially told the interrogating officers that after he left his girl friend's house that evening at about 9:30 P.M., he went to the defendant's house and that the two went "four-wheeling" in Duclos' truck for "quite a while." He said that, after dropping the defendant off at his house, he arrived home at about 11:30 P.M. and found that his parents had been shot. After one of the officers questioned him about the blood spatterings on his socks, Duclos abandoned this alibi, admitted having participated in the killings, and told the police of the plan by which he and the defendant had killed his parents. According to Duclos' statement, he and the defendant agreed that morning on a plan to kill his parents, and Duclos showed the defendant the rifles they would use and explained how to fire them. At about 10 P.M. that evening, he and the defendant drove to the Duclos home and Duclos went inside. The defendant waited outside for a little over an hour, until Duclos signalled to him that his parents had retired for the night and that he should come inside. Duclos then handed the defendant one of two rifles he had taken from the gun cabinet in his bedroom. He and the defendant, each with a rifle, then went upstairs, where the defendant shot Anna Duclos twice and Emile Duclos three times. Afterwards, Duclos changed his clothes, while the defendant scattered papers on the floor downstairs.

Police officers at the station made a telephone call to the defendant at his residence at about 2 A.M., after Duclos had named him as an alibi witness. ³ The defendant agreed to accept a ride to the station, ten miles away, and he arrived about one hour later, unaccompanied by either a family member or friend. The defendant waited at the station for about three hours before being interrogated; he spent much of this time in the "radio room" talking with Kathleen Whipple, Duclos' girl friend (whom Duclos had also named as an alibi witness), and her father.

At 6:05 A.M., Sergeant Bradley Mullen of the State police and Officer Michael Young of the Winchendon police department began their interrogation of the defendant. They had already concluded their interview with William Duclos and, consequently, were aware of Duclos' statement incriminating himself and the defendant. Before starting the questioning, they did not inform the defendant of his Miranda rights or his right under G.L. c. 276, § 33A (1990 ed.), to use the telephone. ⁴ Instead, Sergeant Mullen began the interrogation by telling the defendant that he would "like to talk to him about his activities during the day." The defendant replied that during the day, he had worked with William Duclos. In the evening, he told the officers, Duclos had picked him up at about 9:30 P.M. The two then "spent two hours or so 4 wheeling," and Duclos dropped him off at his home at about 11:30 P.M. The defendant's report of his activities during the evening thus duplicated the alibi that Duclos had initially given. In response to further questioning, the defendant stated that Duclos' relationship with his parents was "[f]ine," and he denied that he or Duclos had ever discussed killing Duclos' parents. At this point, Sergeant Mullen advised the defendant of his Miranda rights. ⁵ The defendant signed the Miranda card and told the officers that he was willing to talk to them; the interrogation continued. Mullen next inquired if the defendant had ever fired Duclos' guns, or seen them, and the defendant responded that he had seen the guns the previous day and that Duclos had fired the guns in his presence, but that Duclos did not allow him to fire the guns. Sergeant Mullen then remarked that he did not believe that the defendant was telling the truth, and he informed the defendant that Duclos had implicated him in the murders. ⁶ The defendant then repudiated the alibi he had originally offered and made the statement that was read at his trial, in which he admitted that he was on the Duclos property at the time of the shootings, that Duclos had told him to scatter papers around to create the appearance of a burglary on the first floor of the Duclos home and that he had done so, that he had taken Anna Duclos' purse and Emile Duclos' wallet to substantiate the appearance that a burglary had occurred, and that he had helped William Duclos to throw the guns, clothing, and other evidence into a "lake." The defendant denied that he had shot Duclos' parents and denied that he had been upstairs in the house that evening. The interrogation of the defendant began at 6:05 A.M., and concluded at 7:15 A.M., when the defendant signed the statement prepared by Sergeant Mullen. The defendant conceded that Sergeant Mullen had treated him like a "gentleman."

In ruling on the suppression motion, the judge ordered that the statements made by the defendant before being advised of his Miranda rights were to be excluded, but he ruled that the statements made after the defendant received his Miranda rights were voluntary and admissible. ⁷

Under Federal constitutional law prior to the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985), discussed below, an admission or confession of guilt obtained from an accused person in violation of the Miranda requirements was presumed to taint any subsequent confession made by the accused, and the taint could not be dissipated solely by giving Miranda warnings. Commonwealth v. Haas, 373 Mass. 545, 554, 369 N.E.2d 692 (1977). This principle was followed in both Federal and State courts. See, e.g., United States v. Lee, 699 F.2d 466, 468-469 (9th Cir.1982); United States v. Nash, 563 F.2d 1166, 1169 (5th Cir.1977); Randall v. Estelle, 492 F.2d 118, 120 (5th Cir.1974); Fisher v. Scafati, 439 F.2d 307, 311 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 403 U.S. 939, 91 S.Ct. 2256, 29 L.Ed.2d 719 (1971); Gilpin v. United States, 415 F.2d 638, 641-642 (5th Cir.1969); United States v. Pierce, 397 F.2d 128, 131 (4th Cir.1968); People v. Jordan, 90 Ill.App.3d 489, 495, 45 Ill.Dec. 862, 413 N.E.2d 195 (1980); State v. Elstad, 61 Or.App. 673, 676, 658 P.2d 552 (1983); Commonwealth v. Wideman, 460 Pa. 699, 708-709, 334...