Com. v. Williams
| Decision Date | 03 October 1973 |
| Citation | 364 Mass. 145,301 N.E.2d 683 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Betty J. WILLIAMS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Michael R. Pizziferri (Joseph A. Todisco, Boston, with him) for defendant.
Terence M. Troyer, Asst. Dist. Atty., (Barbara A. H. Smith, Asst. Dist. Atty., with him) for the Commonwealth.
Before TAURO, C.J., and QUIRICO, BRAUCHER, HENNESSEY and WILKINS, JJ.
The defendant appeals under G.L. c. 278, §§ 33A--33G, from a conviction for murder in the first degree of one Leo J. Bourgault. The jury, under procedure which was appropriate at the time of trial, recommended that the sentence of death be not imposed, and the defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment.
There was evidence from which the jury were warranted in concluding that about 1 A.M., on the morning of August 17, 1970, the victim Bourgault hired a room at a motor inn in Watertown. He entered the assigned room with the defendant and another girl named Elaine Soares. The defendant was nineteen years old, just short of her twentieth birthday, and the other girl was about the same age. Bourgault registered Elaine Soares as his wife and the defendant as her sister. He had paid money to each of the girls to engage in sexual acts with him in the motel room. By reason of a childhood illness, Bourgault had very limited use of his legs and was unable to walk without the use of crutches and a leg brace. Above the waist, he was well developed.
Shortly after the three entered their room there was a disturbance and the motel night clerk went to the room to ask them to be more quiet. The defendant answered the door but he was unable to see beyond her into the room. The defendant stated that Bourgault was having an argument with his wife and that they would quiet down. The disturbance ended. About an hour later, Soares and the defendant left in Bourgault's car. In the morning, Bourgault was found dead in one of the beds, bound and gagged. His death had resulted from strangulation by ligature, and there was some evidence that other extreme violence had been inflicted upon him. His gold ring was missing, and on the morning of August 17 the defendant sold this ring to a man in Boston for $30.
1. The proof against the defendant consisted in large measure of several statements in the nature of admissions. The defendant assigns as error the judge's denial, after hearing, of her motion to suppress these statements. These included a written statement to the police which the defendant signed after making changes, a stenographic transcript of an interview between the defendant and the police, and verbal testimony of statements made by the defendant to an acquaintance of hers. In substance these statements showed that Soares and the defendant determined to steal Bourgault's money surreptitiously. While the defendant was having sexual contact with Bourgault, Soares attempted to take the money from his trousers but was detected. Bourgault cried out and began to strike the defendant and Soares. He was bound and gagged and strangled by means of something tied around his neck.
Other statements imputed to the defendant are in many respects self-serving but, in consideration of the jury's privilege to accept them as credible in selective fashion, her total statements constituted sufficient evidence to warrant the jury in concluding that the defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree on one or all of three separate grounds: because it was a homicide connected with a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment, or because she participated in a deliberately premeditated killing, or because the killing was accomplished with extreme cruelty and atrocity. There was other evidence which tended to corroborate important segments of the defendant's several statements.
There was no error in the admission of the statements in evidence. They were admitted after a lengthy voir dire hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress them. Thereafter the judge made extensive findings of fact, which were warranted by the evidence, and which support his rulings. In substance he found that the constitutional requirements of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), had been met; that the defendant did not have the assistance of counsel at the time that she made the statements but that she 'freely, intelligently, knowingly, voluntarily, and willingly waived her constitutional rights not to talk' and her right to the assistance of counsel. He further found that 'in few cases have I seen so many Miranda v. Arizona warnings given to a defendant and so many knowingly, intelligent, free, and voluntary waivings of rights.' 1
The judge further found that the defendant volunteered her statements in the hope that she would be given lenient treatment, although he found that nothing was said or done by the authorities by way of threat, or promise of immunity or leniency, to induce her to make the statements. The defendant was about twenty years old at the time of her arrest; she had completed two and one-half years of high school and one month at a business school. Although there was substantial evidence against her apart from her statements, it is a reasonable inference that her admissions added significantly to the strength of the Commonwealth's proof against her. In the light of the present knowledge that the jury reached a conclusion that she was guilty of murder in the first degree, it may be argued that she used bad judgment in answering questions and in declining the assistance of counsel. Any lawyer charged with protecting her interests might well have advised her to remain silent. However, there is nothing in the Miranda doctrine that required the authorities to protect this defendant against the consequences of what may now retrospectively be said to be her poor judgment, since she was fully informed of her rights and voluntarily waived them. This is not a case like Commonwealth v. McKenna, 355 Mass. 313, 319--320, 244 N.E.2d 560 (1969), where the police actively prevented an attorney from reaching his client. Compare Commonwealth v. Wilbur, 353 Mass. 376, 382--383, 231 N.E.2d 919 (1967); Commonwealth v. Fisher, 354 Mass. 549, 554--555, 238 N.E.2d 525 (1968); Commonwealth v. Marsh, 354 Mass. 713, 718--720, 242 N.E.2d 545 (1968).
2. The trial of this indictment required more than four weeks, and it generated a transcript of more than 3,400 pages. The defendant's attorney saved 613 exceptions and has brought to this court 655 assignments of error. The defendant's brief fails in almost every major respect to conform to the rules of this court. For the most part, it consists merely of a litany of the alleged errors of the trial judge. Nevertheless, we have examined the entire stenographic transcript in the light of all of the assignment of error, and we find that the conduct of the trial was free of error.
We summarize and dispose of some of the assignments of error, as to which some semblance of orthodox argument was advanced before us by the defence. The Commonwealth was not required to specify in answer to a bill of particulars the type of first degree murder it intended to prove (Commonwealth v. McLaughlin, 352 Mass. 218, 222, 224 N.E.2d 444 (1967); Commonwealth v. White, 353 Mass. 409, 413, 232 N.E.2d 335 (1967)) and the Commonwealth sufficiently particularized the means by which the crime was committed when it answered that death was due to '(a)sphyxia due to strangulation by ligature--multiple blunt force injuries.' Commonwealth v. Noxon, 319 Mass. 495, 535--536, 66 N.E.2d 814 (1946). There was no error in the mere fact that the same judge presided over a lengthy evidentiary hearing on the defendant's motions to suppress and presided over the trial in chief before a jury. See King v. Grace, 293 Mass. 244, 247, 200 N.E. 346 (1936); Berlandi v. Commonwealth, 314 Mass. 424, 453, 50 N.E.2d 210 (1943). The defendant, who is a black charged with the murder of a white man, asserts error in the judge's refusal to dismiss the indictment because only one of the 121 persons called on the venire was a black person, but she fails to make the requisite showing either by affidavit or testimony that...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Com. v. Carrion
...to modify a jury's verdict." Commonwealth v. Garabedian, 399 Mass. 304, 316, 503 N.E.2d 1290 (1987), quoting Commonwealth v. Williams, 364 Mass. 145, 151, 301 N.E.2d 683 (1973). There was evidence of an unprovoked attack on the victim by the defendant resulting in six deep wounds likely del......
-
Com. v. Colleran
...for the public interest impels us to use with restraint our power under § 33E to modify the jury's verdict." Commonwealth v. Williams, 364 Mass. 145, 151, 301 N.E.2d 683 (1973). are a number of factors that the court has considered in the interests of justice under § 33E as mitigation of mu......
-
Com. v. Colon
..."did not rise to the level of a showing of purposeful systematic exclusion of minorities in the venire." See Commonwealth v. Williams, 364 Mass. 145, 149, 301 N.E.2d 683 (1973) (no error in judge's refusal to dismiss indictment where only one of 121 persons on venire was black). See also Un......
-
Com. v. Tavares
...555, 569 n.20, 401 N.E.2d 811, quoting Commonwealth v. Seit, 373 Mass. 83, 94, 364 N.E.2d 1243 (1977). See Commonwealth v. Williams, 364 Mass. 145, 150, 301 N.E.2d 683 (1973). Our power, however, is to be used with restraint. Commonwealth v. MacDonald, 371 Mass. 600, 604, 358 N.E.2d 1005 Th......