Com. v. Sneed

• Decision Date: 08 November 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-P-55.,01-P-55.
• Citation: 777 N.E.2d 1280,56 Mass. App. Ct. 391
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Maxine E. SNEED.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

777 N.E.2d 1280

56 Mass. App. Ct. 391

COMMONWEALTH v. Maxine E. SNEED.

No. 01-P-55.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued March 15, 2002.

Decided November 8, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Cathryn A. Neaves, Assistant Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.

Dana Alan Curhan, Boston, for the defendant.

Present: DUFFLY, KASS, & TRAINOR, JJ.

TRAINOR, J.

This is an interlocutory appeal by the Commonwealth from a Boston Municipal Court judge's allowance of a motion to suppress statements made by the defendant to State Trooper Matthew Murphy and civilian financial investigator James McFadden. The investigation resulted in the issuance of a complaint charging larceny over $250 by a single scheme, in violation of G.L. c. 266, § 30(1). The judge made sparse but adequate subsidiary and ultimate findings that the statements were the product of a custodial interrogation without the defendant having been given the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). We affirm the judge's allowance of the motion to suppress.

Facts. The findings of the motion judge are summarized as follows. On June 9, 1999, the defendant, age seventy and a long-term employee of the State Lottery Commission (commission), was home sick for the fourth day from her job as one of two employees of the Game Room at the McCormack State office building. The Game Room is a commission outlet where lottery tickets are sold to the public. The defendant suffered from asthma and was using a nebulizer that required an electric outlet to operate.

At approximately 1:00 P.M., Trooper Murphy and McFadden rang her doorbell. They were in plain clothes and unarmed. Their arrival had been unannounced and the defendant answered the door in what appeared to be pajamas or sweatpants. Trooper Murphy intended to inquire about the defendant's job at the Game Room and about $24,000 in missing receipts. A simultaneous investigation was being conducted of the Game Room's other employee. Trooper Murphy and McFadden had copies of the daily reporting forms from the Game Room for January through March, 1999, and the results of Trooper Murphy's investigation into the defendant's slot machine gambling activity at a Connecticut casino.

The interrogation lasted approximately two hours. Although the Commonwealth claimed that the defendant admitted taking $24,000, Trooper Murphy did not arrest her. She was later summonsed. The defendant was not given Miranda warnings, was not told that she did not have to answer questions, and was not told that she could leave or order the trooper and the investigator to leave her apartment. Three hours after the interrogation, the defendant received emergency treatment for her asthma.

Discussion. We accept the motion judge's subsidiary findings because they are supported by the evidence, and we give substantial deference to his ultimate findings. We make our own determination of the correctness of the judge's legal rulings. Commonwealth v. Eagles, 419 Mass. 825, 832 n. 9, 648 N.E.2d 410 (1995). We will apply the analysis set forth in Commonwealth v. Bryant, 390 Mass. 729, 736-742, 459 N.E.2d 792 (1984). The four factors to be considered pursuant to Bryant are "(1) the place of the interrogation; (2) whether the investigation has begun to focus on the [defendant] ... [ (and whether this suspicion has been communicated to the defendant), see Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 324, 114 S.Ct. 1526, 128 L.Ed.2d 293 (1994); Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. 201, 212, 755 N.E.2d 1224 (2001) ]; (3) the nature of the interrogation, including whether the interview was aggressive or, instead, informal and influenced in its contours by the suspect; and (4) whether, at the time the incriminating statement was made, the suspect was free to end the interview by leaving the locus of the interrogation or by asking the interrogator to leave...." Commonwealth v. Bryant, supra at 737, 459 N.E.2d 792. See Commonwealth v. Groome, supra at 211-212, 755 N.E.2d 1224.

1. Place of interrogation. The defendant was questioned in her home, "familiar surroundings" not often construed as oppressive for Miranda purposes. See Commonwealth v. Conkey, 430 Mass. 139, 144, 714 N.E.2d 343 (1999). However, the question is not whether the defendant is familiar with her surroundings, but rather whether "a reasonable person in [her] circumstances would have found the setting isolating and coercive." Commonwealth v. Gallati, 40 Mass.App. Ct. 111, 113, 661 N.E.2d 948 (1996). In some cases, a "measure of physical oppressiveness caused by the presence and deployment" of officers in an individual's home may give rise to a custodial environment. See Commonwealth v. Coleman, 49 Mass.App.Ct. 150, 154, 727 N.E.2d 103 (2000) (suspect questioned in small room of house in presence of three officers, one of whom blocked door, was in custody for Miranda purposes). See also Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 327, 89 S.Ct. 1095, 22 L.Ed.2d 311 (1969) (suspect questioned in his room at boarding house by four officers was in custody).

In this case, the defendant had been home sick for four days suffering from asthma. She was using a nebulizer which was plugged into an electric socket in the apartment, and her illness required her to remain close to the nebulizer for relief. The trooper, accompanied by an investigator, arrived at the defendant's apartment unannounced. The defendant greeted the trooper and the investigator at the door in pajamas or sweatpants, and after informing them that she was ill, they nevertheless asked to enter the apartment. During the two hours of questioning that followed, the defendant asked the trooper on several occasions if she should call a lawyer. The trooper responded that she should call a priest for her gambling problem.¹ The defendant was never told that she did not have to answer the trooper's questions, or that she could end the questioning by leaving, or that she could order the trooper and the investigator to leave her apartment. The motion judge properly concluded that a reasonable person, in these circumstances, would have perceived the setting as isolating and coercive.

2. Focus of the investigation. Miranda warnings are not required simply because the person being questioned has become the focus of the police investigation. See Commonwealth v. Vinnie, 428 Mass. 161, 171, 698 N.E.2d 896, cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1007, 119 S.Ct. 523, 142 L.Ed.2d 434 (1998). "It is well settled ... that a police officer's subjective view that the individual under questioning is a suspect, if undisclosed, does not bear upon the question whether the individual is in custody for purposes of Miranda" (emphasis added). Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. at 324, 114 S.Ct. 1526.

However, the conveyance of police suspicions can affect the custodial nature of an interrogation. "An officer's knowledge or beliefs may bear upon the custody issue if they are conveyed, by word or deed, to the individual being questioned. Those beliefs are relevant only to the extent they would affect how a reasonable person in the position of the individual being questioned would gauge the breadth of his or her `freedom of action.'" Id. at 325, 114 S.Ct. 1526 (citations omitted). The trooper and the investigator came to the interrogation armed with Game Room daily reporting forms that covered a three-month period in 1999 as well as with the results of a separate investigation into the defendant's...