Commonwealth v. Adams
| Decision Date | 09 September 2020 |
| Docket Number | SJC-12709 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. James L. ADAMS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Scott A. Katz, Boston, for the defendant.
Kate Cimini, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.
The defendant was indicted on nine counts of forcible rape of a child and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was charged as a principal in three of the counts of rape, and as a joint venturer in three counts of rape where Calvin Spencer was charged as a principal, and three where Joseph Brown was so charged.1 After a jury trial, the defendant was acquitted on all counts in which he had been charged as a principal, and all counts alleging oral rape where he had been charged as a joint venturer. He was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The jury were unable to reach a verdict with respect to the remaining four counts. Before attempting to retry the defendant, the Commonwealth conducted extensive additional deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing on the clothing the victim had been wearing, and at the retrial, the Commonwealth introduced the results of some of those additional tests. At his second jury trial, conducted by the same judge, the defendant was convicted as a joint venturer in vaginal and anal rapes committed by his two coventurers.
On appeal, the defendant argues that subjecting him to a second trial violated the constitutional protection against double jeopardy. Specifically, he contends that, because he was acquitted of oral rape as a joint venturer, the jury at his first trial necessarily found that he was not a joint venturer as to any of the rapes, and thus he could not be retried on the other counts involving joint venture. The defendant maintains as well that certain evidence, in particular, the DNA test results from his first trial, as well as the subsequent testing, should not have been admitted. After careful review of the record at both trials, we affirm the convictions.
1. Facts. Because the defendant's double jeopardy claim depends on the evidence presented at his first trial, we recount that evidence in some detail, viewing it in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth; where the evidence at the two trials differed substantively, we indicate those differences.
In April, 2011, the fourteen year old victim was a patient in a residential treatment program at McLean Hospital (McLean) and was attending school on the McLean grounds. On April 5, 2011, the victim had a pass to go to Boston for a Portuguese lesson. She left McLean at approximately 3:30 P.M. , and traveled by bus and by Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) trains on the Red and Green Lines to a coffee shop near Boston University. When the victim arrived at approximately 5:30 or 6 P.M. , she believed that she might have been "a little late" for the meeting. After waiting briefly for her instructor, who did not appear, the victim rode the Green Line back to downtown Boston. She went to the MBTA's South Station, hoping to buy drugs for a friend at McLean who had given her money to do so.
Unable to find any cocaine to purchase, the victim rode a Red Line train back to Harvard Square. She eventually arrived at an area near the Harvard Square MBTA station known as "the pit," where she hoped to be able to purchase drugs. There, she met four men: Armando Hernandez, Spencer, Brown, and the defendant.2 She told them that she was nineteen years old and a college student. After talking with the victim for some time, the four men walked toward Harvard Yard. The victim followed, hoping that they were going to a place where they would have drugs. When the men got onto a bus, the victim went with them.
On the bus, the men passed around bottles of liquor. The victim drank most of a bottle of brandy. Hernandez, who had suffered a recent injury, produced a prescription bottle, took a Percocet
pill, and gave one or more pills to Spencer. Spencer, Brown, the defendant, and the victim got off the bus near Central Square; Hernandez did not get off with them. By that time, the victim was feeling lightheaded and dizzy. One of the men went to a liquor store, and the victim and the other two men crossed the street to an apartment building on Massachusetts Avenue.3 When someone left the building, the group went inside. They went upstairs in the elevator, and arrived in an area with a series of hallways that were unlit except for a light coming from a bathroom located at one end. They sat on the floor in the hallway; at some point Spencer rejoined them. One man gave the victim a Percocet ; they also all smoked marijuana.4 The victim took ten or eleven puffs; thereafter, she felt "very unaware of everything," and unable to think. At that point, the bathroom light was off.
The man sitting next to the victim asked her if she had ever "been with" a black man. She replied that she had not, then apparently passed out. When she came to, most of her clothing had been removed. The victim was unable to move her own body much. One of the investigating officers testified that the defendant told police that two men (Spencer and Brown) were having sex with the victim at the same time, and in different ways, moving her into different positions. The same officer testified that the defendant told him that he had masturbated while Spencer and Brown had sex with the victim. The victim testified that she was "in and out of passing out"; at one point, she heard one of the men ask another if she were dead. The assaults "just stopped" thirty minutes after they had begun; the victim was clear on the time, because she "checked [her] phone."
The men helped the victim dress. By then she was able to walk to the elevator by leaning on someone. The three men took her to the elevator and went downstairs with her. One of the men walked her to the Central Square MBTA stop; at that point, she was able to "walk in a straight line."5 The man asked if he could call her the following day; she said "sure."6 He also told her that "it would be better next time if you weren't so drunk." The victim rode a Red Line train from Central Square to Harvard Square. She arrived at approximately 9 P.M. , thought that she was well in time to return to McLean as scheduled, sat down on the floor of the station, and slept on and off for about one-half hour. When she woke up, she sent a text message to a friend, who testified as a first complaint witness. The victim then called her program and asked someone to pick her up at the Harvard Square station because she would be late returning if she took the bus.
Later that evening, the victim went to an emergency room. A doctor there observed bruising on her labia and cervix and a tear on her hymen
. She also had a rug burn on her back, from when she had been lying on her back, and felt pain in her rectum. At trial, the doctor testified about the collection of evidence from the victim's body and her clothing, as well as to the effect of the combination of the drugs and alcohol the victim had consumed.
Approximately two weeks after the incident, Cambridge police conducted an identification of the defendant through a photographic array. They examined the victim's cellular telephone, surveillance video footage from the Central Square and South Station MBTA stations, and surveillance video recordings from the apartment house on Massachusetts Avenue; investigators also examined and took samples from the hallway in the building, to which the victim was able to lead them. The hallway contained numerous stains from bodily fluids on the carpet, moldings, and walls, but forensic testing yielded nothing useful for the defendant's case.
During an interview, the defendant told police that he had been present at the scene and had masturbated while watching the other men; he was able to describe the men's actions, but denied having sex with the victim himself and denied that she had been forced. The defendant's and the victim's statements to police were introduced at trial through testimony by an investigating officer.
DNA testing was performed on samples obtained from swabs of the victim's body and some of her clothing. The testing was divided into sperm and non-sperm portions.
The non-sperm portion of the vaginal swab yielded one DNA profile that matched the victim. The sperm portion contained a mixed profile; within that, the major profile matched Spencer, and the defendant and Brown were excluded as potential contributors.7 The victim's bra (that and her shoes were the only items of clothing that she was still wearing when she woke up) contained amylase8 but not sperm cells. The defendant matched the major DNA profile obtained from the bra,9 and the victim and Spencer were included as potential contributors to the minor profile; Brown was excluded. The sperm fraction of the sample from the victim's tank top was a single source that matched Spencer. The victim matched the profile of the major contributor to the mixed, non-sperm fraction, and the defendant and Spencer could not be excluded as potential contributors to the minor profile; Brown was excluded. No sperm or seminal fluid was found in samples taken from the victim's mouth.
After the jury were unable to reach a verdict on some of the charges, the Commonwealth conducted more extensive DNA testing on the victim's skirt and the front and back panels of her underwear. In this testing, Spencer was identified as the major profile in the sperm fraction of the testing, and the defendant could not be excluded10 from the sperm fraction of a mixture on the underwear that contained DNA from at least three men. The defendant also could not be excluded from a non-sperm mixture on the victim's skirt and her tank top, by comparable ratios to those of the underwear.
2. Discussion. a. Waiver. As a threshold matter, we note that the...
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