Com. v. Young

• Decision Date: 26 June 1986
• Citation: 494 N.E.2d 419,22 Mass. App. Ct. 452
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. David YOUNG, Jr.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 419

494 N.E.2d 419

22 Mass.App.Ct. 452

COMMONWEALTH v.David YOUNG, Jr.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts Suffolk.

Argued April 15, 1986.

Decided June 26, 1986.

Thomas C. Federico, Committee for Public Counsel Services(Stephanie Page, Committee for Public Counsel Services, with him) for defendant.

Judy G. Zeprun, Asst. Dist. Atty., for Commonwealth.

Before BROWN, PERRETTA and KASS, JJ.

KASS, Justice.

After a third trial, the defendant Young stands convicted of the second degree murder of James ("D.J.")Walker and Leonard Walker.¹ The facts which the jury could have found from the Commonwealth's evidence are essentially the same as those described in detail in Commonwealth v. Young, 382 Mass. 448, 449-453, 416 N.E.2d 944(1981).

1.Prosecutor's closing argument.In final argument, the prosecutor commented on the defendant's demeanor during the trial: "Did you notice how he just sits there stone-faced, cool, never blinks an eye, doesn't get upset about anything?He's very in control.He doesn't show his emotions when he doesn't want to, does he?"Defense counsel promptly objected to those remarks.Appellate counsel for the defendant argues that the remarks were so unfair as to deprive the defendant of due process and, inferentially, deprived the defendant of his right to remain silent.

In the context of the trial, we do not think the prosecutor's remarks were unfair or that they could reasonably be considered as a comment on the defendant's failing to take the stand.To be sure, a defendant"has the right to remain passive, and to insist that the Commonwealth prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt without explanation or denial by him."Commonwealth v. Powers, 9 Mass.App.Ct. 771, 774, 404 N.E.2d 1260(1980), quoting fromCommonwealth v. Madeiros, 255 Mass. 304, 307, 255 N.E. 297(1926).Prosecutorial remarks "reasonably susceptible of being interpreted as a comment on [a defendant's] failure to take the stand" are impermissible.Commonwealth v. Domanski, 332 Mass. 66, 69, 123 N.E.2d 368(1954).SeeBorodine v. Douzanis, 592 F.2d 1202, 1210-1211(1st Cir.1979).Evidence of guilt is not to be implied from a defendant's sitting calmly in the courtroom.Commonwealth v. Borodine, 371 Mass. 1, 11, 353 N.E.2d 649(1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1049, 97 S.Ct. 760, 50 L.Ed.2d 765(1977).Suggesting that a defendant's courtroom behavior betrays consciousness of guilt is proscribed, Commonwealth v. Valliere, 366 Mass. 479, 494-495, 321 N.E.2d 625(1974), but comment on coolness of demeanor is not necessarily out of bounds.Ibid.See alsoCommonwealth v. Smith, 387 Mass. 900, 907, 444 N.E.2d 374(1983);Commonwealth v. Connor, 392 Mass. 838, 853, 467 N.E.2d 1340(1984);Commonwealth v. Burston, 11 Mass.App.Ct. 1036, 420 N.E.2d 362(1981);Commonwealth v. Kozec, 21 Mass.App.Ct. 355, 364-365 n.7, 487 N.E.2d 216(1985), further appellate review granted, 397 Mass. 1101(1986).Cf.2 Wigmore, Evidence § 274(3d ed. 1940).

In this case comment on the defendant's coolness was germane and responsive.Defense counsel, in her closing speech, had argued the unlikelihood of murder following upon an apparently friendly meeting between the defendant and D.J. Walker.The prosecutor's reference to the defendant's demeanor was a comment on his ability to dissemble.We do not think the prosecutor's remarks on demeanor can reasonably be construed as a comment on the failure of the defendant to testify.Indeed, in her own closing argument, defense counsel had, as a matter of tactics, made more direct reference to her client's declining to testify.Moreover, the judge gave emphatic instructions that the jury were not to draw inferences adverse to the defendant from his exercising his right not to testify.

Our opinion that the prosecutor's remarks about the defendant's calm were permissible, and not a basis for reversal, should not be read as a general endorsement of comment on a defendant's calm demeanor in any prosecution.The cases cited, read in the light of their facts, do not stand for a blanket rule that comment on the demeanor of the defendant is permissible in every case.Defense counsel are well advised to--and do--instruct their clients that courtroom decorum calls for quiet and controlled behavior."Sit there," as the saying goes, "like a fire hydrant."It cannot be fair to pillory a defendant for behaving appropriately.We caution prosecutors that comment on demeanor is a dangerous device, not to be employed as a matter of routine, but only if the record context provides solid ground for it.

Another portion of the prosecution's closing which the defendant protests as an adverse comment on his silence went as follows: "And D.J. and Young went into a room together for forty-five minutes, and nobody knows what that conversation was except David Young.And then they came out."In view of the effort of the defense, in closing, to characterize the same encounter between D.J. Walker and the defendant, which occurred on the day D.J. was murdered, as one of reconciliation in an atmosphere of amity, the prosecution's remark was a permissible comment on the evidence.SeeCommonwealth v. Storey, 378 Mass. 312, 323-324, 391 N.E.2d 898(1979).

A third element of the closing argument to which the defendant objects was its emphasis on the victim D.J. Walker's connection to the defendant as a low-level drug dealer for the latter, who stood somewhat higher in the chain of distribution.That relationship could fairly be argued on the basis of the evidence.SeeCommonwealth v. Francis, 391 Mass. 369, 372, 461 N.E.2d 811(1984).As to the relevance of the drug-dealing setting to the homicides, seeCommonwealth v. Young, 382 Mass. at 463, 416 N.E.2d 944.

2.Testimony about weapons.Three witnesses testified that they had seen the defendant with handguns prior to the murders.Anthony Grant(who had been beaten, shot at, and pistol-whipped three days before the murders)² testified over objection that he had seen the defendant display a black-barreled .38 calibre handgun and a silver handgun which looked like a .32 or .38 calibre weapon to him.The victim's sister saw the defendant with a silver, brown-handled handgun tucked into his trousers two days before the murders, and had earlier seen him with a smaller black handgun which she took to be a .22 calibre weapon.A third witness testified he had seen the defendant with a pistol handle sticking out from his trousers the day before the murders.The murder weapon was a .38, but there was ballistics evidence tending to prove that the handgun used to shoot at the witness Grant was a different .38. On the basis of the evidence it was a matter of conjecture whether any of the handguns described by the witnesses was the murder weapon.None of the handguns described came into the possession of the Commonwealth, and none was received in evidence.

The defendant's claim of error is that the evidence of the defendant's gun toting and gun display was of a "prior bad acts" character and, therefore, not admissible.See generallyLiacos, Massachusetts Evidence 420 (5th ed. 1981 & Supp. 1985, at 190).Here, however, the probative force of the evidence was not that the defendant was a bad man (evidence of the brutal assault on Grant, which was tied to the murders, was more potent in that regard), but that he possessed the means to commit the crimes.Commonwealth v. Caine, 366 Mass. 366, 371, 318 N.E.2d 901(1974).Ten .38 calibre bullets had been fired into the two victims.That the defendant had been in possession of weapons which might have been used in committing the crimes was, in the judge's discretion, admissible.Commonwealth v. Toro, 395 Mass. 354, 356, 480 N.E.2d 19(1985).Unlike the evidence in the case of Commonwealth v. Toro, supra at 357-358, 480 N.E.2d 19, the evidence received did not concern weapons which had definitively been established to be unconnected with the crime around which the trial revolved.

3.Admission of hearsay.Anthony Grant testified that, after the defendant had fired a handgun at him in the basement of the defendant's parents' house, the defendant's father called down, "Dave, don't kill him in here, don't kill him in here; I told you not to kill him in here."The extrajudicial statement was not offered to establish the truth of any facts asserted in it, but for atmospherics, to give the jury the benefit of the complete occurrence.As such it was admissible under the exception to the hearsay rule which permits receiving evidence of spontaneous statements closely connected with, and perhaps affecting, the conduct in issue.SeeCommonwealth v. Harris, ...