Com. v. Watkins

• Decision Date: 27 August 1997
• Citation: 425 Mass. 830,683 N.E.2d 653
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Lonnie WATKINS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 653

683 N.E.2d 653

425 Mass. 830

COMMONWEALTH v. Lonnie WATKINS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Suffolk.

Argued Feb. 4, 1997.

Decied Aug. 27, 1997.

Robert L. Sheketoff, Boston, for defendant.

Jane A. Sullivan, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

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

MARSHALL, Justice.

On June 28, 1994, Lonnie Watkins was convicted by a jury on two indictments charging armed robbery, G.L. c. 265, § 17, and two indictments charging murder in the first degree by reason of extreme atrocity or cruelty and felony- G.L. c. 265, § 1. The trial judge in the Superior Court sentenced Watkins to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment on the murder convictions, and two terms of from fifteen to twenty-years on the armed robbery convictions. ¹

Watkins appeals from these convictions. He maintains that the judge erred by permitting jurors to decide individually, rather than unanimously as a jury, whether the Commonwealth had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Watkins's pretrial statement to the police was voluntary. Watkins also argues that the judge's instructions to the jury on proof beyond a reasonable doubt and on joint venture were erroneous and violated his constitutional rights. He further contends that his motion to suppress evidence seized from his home was incorrectly decided in violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and arts. 14 and 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. We affirm the convictions.

1. On the evening of March 27, and the early morning of March 28, 1993, Watkins and several friends attended a birthday party at a house in the Dorchester section of Boston. Also attending the party were the victims Lloyd Industrious and Kevin Christopher. ² Christopher was wearing two large gold chains around his neck. At some point during the evening, Watkins and at least three of his friends decided to steal a chain from Christopher. They later agreed that they would wait until the party was over before doing so. Ana Bodden who was also a guest at the party testified that an hour before it ended, Watkins, Payne, and Anderson together had shown her guns that each had; Watkins's gun was under his shirt.

The party ended at around 3:45 A.M. on March 28, 1993, when guests began to leave. Parked across the street from the house was a white Mitsubishi automobile that Industrious and Christopher had driven to the party. Parked behind the Mitsubishi was a Ford Taurus automobile in which six other guests who were leaving the party were passengers. A driveway separated the two automobiles. Bodden was in the front passenger seat of the Taurus.

Bodden testified that shortly before the shooting, Edwards was standing on the sidewalk, talking to the driver of the Taurus, Charae Chretien. While Chretien and Edwards were talking, Bodden heard gunshots. She saw Watkins, Payne, and Anderson shooting at Christopher and Industrious who were on the ground. Bodden observed someone shoot Industrious as he attempted to stand up; she testified that she thought that Payne was the person shooting at Industrious. She identified Watkins and Anderson as the two who shot Christopher. When the shooting stopped, the men turned and ran down the street past the Ford Taurus. Bodden saw Anderson grab a chain from Christopher and saw Edwards take a chain from Industrious.

Later that day, Boston police detectives questioned Bodden at the home of her aunt. She told the detectives that Watkins, Edwards, Anderson, and "Chris" were the men whom she had seen shoot Christopher and Industrious, ³ and she gave the police descriptions of Edwards, Anderson, and Watkins. The following day, in a subsequent interview, Bodden was shown a book of photographs; she picked out photographs of Anderson, Edwards, Watkins, and a man she referred to as "Derek" ⁴ as those who had been at the party.

Another passenger in the Ford Taurus, Adrian Castillo, also testified at Watkins's trial. She testified that after the party, as she and her friends were sitting in the Taurus, and shortly after Edwards spoke to Chretien, she heard noises that sounded like firecrackers. When she looked up she saw Payne, Edwards, and another man whose back was toward her, shooting at Christopher. She saw a man over six feet tall standing alone near the sidewalk side of the automobile ⁵; she said she saw sparks from that side of the automobile. After the shooting stopped, Castillo said she saw the men run down the street; Edwards turned around and snatched a chain from one of the victim's neck.

The medical examiner who performed autopsies on Christopher and Industrious testified that both men had died from multiple gunshot wounds. A police ballistics expert testified that at least four different guns had been used to shoot Christopher and Industrious: two nine millimeter semiautomatic handguns, a .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol, and a revolver, either .38 or .357 caliber.

As a result of the information provided to them, on March 30, 1993, Boston police obtained arrest warrants for four suspects, including Watkins. Lieutenant Detective Timothy Murray, Detective John Brasil, Officer Kenneth Dortch, and two other police officers were assigned to arrest Watkins at 44 Havelock Street where Watkins was believed to reside.

The building at 44 Havelock Street is a three-story dwelling, with a different apartment on each floor. At around 4 P.M. when the police arrived at that address, they had an arrest warrant for Watkins, but they did not know in which apartment he lived. The police entered the building through an unlocked door and spoke, first, to a resident of the first-floor apartment who informed them that Watkins lived in the second-floor apartment. At the second-floor apartment, Watkins's grandmother confirmed that Watkins resided there, but had left shortly before the police arrived. She allowed the police to enter the apartment, and they then conducted a protective sweep. ⁶ Murray testified that after she allowed the police into the apartment, they conducted a protective sweep to see if Watkins was there. After the police determined that Watkins was not present, they informed his grandmother that they wanted to wait in the apartment for him and to ensure that no evidence was removed or destroyed until they had obtained a search warrant.

Between 4:30 or 5 P.M., after the premises had been secured, Murray left to obtain the search warrant; the other police officers remained at the apartment. At about 11:45 P.M., Murray returned with a search warrant, and the police then conducted the search of the entire apartment. The police removed from Watkins's bedroom a gun cleaning kit, a shotgun shell, three .22 caliber live rounds of ammunition, two nine millimeter live rounds of ammunition, and personal papers.

Meanwhile Watkins had arrived back at the apartment around 7 P.M.; he was arrested. Later that night, while in police custody, Watkins was interrogated about the robbery and murders of Christopher and Industrious.

2. Watkins challenges the judge's supplemental instructions, given in response to the jury's inquiry about the burden of proof required to evaluate the voluntariness of Watkins's statements to the police. At trial a tape recording of Watkins's interrogation by the police on the night he was arrested was played to the jury. ⁷ The judge instructed the jury twice--when they initially heard the recording and again when he gave his instructions immediately prior to deliberations--that, before considering Watkins's statement, the jury must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement was voluntary. These instructions were given pursuant to our humane practice. See Commonwealth v. Tavares, 385 Mass. 140, 430 N.E.2d 1198, cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1137, 102 S.Ct. 2967, 73 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1982).

After some hours of deliberation, the jury returned with a question regarding the voluntariness of Watkins's statement: did their decision to use the tape-recorded statement have to be unanimous? Watkins's attorney requested that the judge answer the jury's question in the affirmative. Apparently understanding that the judge would not grant that request, ⁸ Watkins's attorney suggested, in the alternative, that the judge instruct the jury that each juror individually should determine whether Watkins's statement was given voluntarily to the police; if a juror was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement was voluntary, that juror should not use the statement as evidence in coming to his or her own conclusion as to whether the Commonwealth had proved the charged crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge adopted this latter suggestion of defense counsel, and instructed the jury accordingly. Counsel noted his objection.

We conclude that the judge's supplemental instructions were correct and that he was not required to instruct the jury that they had to decide unanimously that Watkins's statement was voluntary before any juror could consider it. Our humane practice requires that, before a defendant's statement may be admitted in evidence, there must be a preliminary hearing at which the Commonwealth must persuade a judge beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement was voluntary. If the statement is later admitted at trial, and if voluntariness is a live issue, the judge must instruct the jury "that the Commonwealth has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement was voluntary and that the jurors must disregard the statement unless the Commonwealth has met its burden." Commonwealth v. Tavares, supra at 151-152, 430 N.E.2d 1198. The second of this two-part inquiry--requiring the jury to find that the Commonwealth has met its burden that the defendant's statement was voluntary--is not constitutionally mandated. See Commonwealth v. Cole, 380 Mass. 30, 40, 402 N.E.2d 55 (1980). We have upheld convictions in...