Commonwealth v. Carroll
| Decision Date | 13 June 2003 |
| Citation | 439 Mass. 547,789 NE 2d 1062 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. CHRIS CARROLL. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.
Tanis M. Yannetti for the defendant.
Christina E. Miller, Assistant District Attorney (John P. Pappas, Assistant District Attorney, with him) for the Commonwealth.
The defendant was indicted for mayhem and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon (a shod foot) in connection with a beating in Chelsea on February 9, 1997. The defendant's first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury reported that they were unable to reach a verdict. The defendant was retried1 and found not guilty of mayhem but guilty of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon.
On appeal the defendant alleges (1) that the trial judge violated his constitutional right to present a defense by excluding evidence of the codefendant's independent motive to commit the crimes, which evidence had been admitted at the first trial; (2) that the prosecutor denied the defendant a fair trial by inviting inference from the absence of the excluded evidence in the course of his cross-examination of the codefendant, Carlos Ramirez, and in his closing argument; and (3) that trial counsel was ineffective. The Appeals Court affirmed the conviction in an order and unpublished memorandum pursuant to its rule 1:28. See Commonwealth v. Carroll, 55 Mass. App. Ct. 1114 (2002). We granted the defendant's application for further appellate review. We affirm the conviction.
1. Background. The jury at the second trial could have found the following facts. At about 3 A.M. on February 9, 1997, the victim, after spending the night drinking in several establishments, was walking to the home of a friend in Chelsea, where he had arranged to spend the night. When he was a few doors away from his friend's home, he heard a car door closing behind him. Turning, he saw a black Mazda RX-7, an automobile that he recognized as belonging to the defendant. Someone struck him on the back of the head. He then saw the defendant and a young Hispanic male whom he did not recognize. He fell to the ground, curled into a fetal position, and was repeatedly beaten, kicked and punched by both men for several minutes. He yelled for them to stop. When the beating ended he picked himself up and ran to his friend's house where he banged on the back door and cried for help. His friend opened the door, helped him in, and then telephoned 911.
Officers Bernard Grayson and Michael Nee of the Chelsea police department arrived at the house within five minutes. Grayson asked the victim if he knew who had done this to him and he replied that it was the defendant and a Hispanic male whom he did not know. He described the Hispanic male and said that he wore baggy white pants and a red, white, and black jacket. He also described the defendant's car. The victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital. As a result of the beating, he suffered a broken nose, a broken and shattered left cheekbone, and a broken left orbital bone. His left eye had to be surgically removed. He also suffered a laceration on his right knee that required stitches.
At about 4:50 A.M. on February 9, Chelsea police stopped a vehicle matching the description given by the victim. They sent a message by radio for Officers Grayson and Nee, who arrived within a few minutes. Grayson asked the driver, whom he recognized as the defendant, to step out of the car. He noticed blood on the defendant's sneakers. The defendant and his passenger, Carlos Ramirez, were both arrested and taken to the Chelsea police station. The defendant's sneakers were removed, tagged as evidence, and sent to a State police laboratory for testing. A State police chemist who conducted enzyme profile tests on the blood from the right sneaker (the left had an insufficient amount for testing) and on blood samples from the victim, the defendant, and Ramirez, testified that the blood on the toe of the defendant's right sneaker did not come from either the defendant or Ramirez, and that it was consistent with the victim's blood. The police did not notice any blood on Ramirez's footwear or his clothing, and therefore did not seize anything from him. They did notice that Ramirez had fresh abrasions along the knuckles and the back side of the fingers of his hands. The Commonwealth offered no evidence of a motive for the attack.
The defendant testified that at about 3 A.M. on February 9, 1997, as he was driving Ramirez home from a movie that they had seen together, the victim flagged him down. He said that the victim, whom he recognized, had come up to the window of his car and asked him if he had any cocaine. He said that he did not. They talked for a few minutes. The victim then asked whether he had change for a twenty dollar bill, because he was still going to shop for drugs but wanted to have the correct change. The defendant pulled all the bills from his pocket, approximately eighty dollars, and held them in his left hand, which was resting on or near the steering wheel. When the defendant reached for a pen in the glove compartment to write down his telephone number for the victim, the victim grabbed the bills and fled. The defendant testified that he was not particularly upset because he knew the victim's family and was confident that he could get the money back. Neither the defendant nor Ramirez pursued the victim, and he continued to drive Ramirez home.
As they were turning a corner at a speed of less than five miles per hour and decelerating, a pedestrian crossed the street ahead of them. Ramirez suddenly jumped out of the car and approached the pedestrian, whom the defendant immediately recognized as the victim. The victim turned and fled down an alleyway and Ramirez chased after him. The defendant testified that he drove his car up the block looking for the two men. He parked his car, then he heard screaming, which led him to where Ramirez was kicking and hitting the victim. The defendant testified that the victim's blood got on his sneakers as he stepped over him to intervene and pull Ramirez away. The victim then got up and ran off. The money was never recovered.2 The defendant drove Ramirez home, but the doors were locked, so they went to a local restaurant for an early breakfast. Later, as he was again driving Ramirez home, the police stopped his car and arrested them.
Ramirez pleaded guilty to mayhem and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon in connection with the incident, before the defendant's first trial. He testified at both trials consistent with the defendant's testimony at both trials.
2. Excluded evidence. At the start of the second trial the prosecutor filed a motion in limine to exclude certain testimony of Ramirez that had been admitted at the first trial. At the first trial Ramirez testified that, six months before the February 9 incident, the victim had approached him while he was playing basketball and asked if he had any drugs to sell, or if he knew anyone who did. Ramirez, annoyed at being interrupted, told him he had none. The victim then left. At the end of the game, Ramirez noticed that his belongings were missing. He concluded that the victim was the only person who could have taken his belongings. A day or two later he saw the victim who, on seeing Ramirez, fled. Shortly afterward Ramirez met one of his friends with a necklace that belonged to Ramirez, and had been one of the items taken. Ramirez learned that his friend had bought it from the victim.
Ramirez had testified at the first trial that this prior event flashed through his mind when the victim took the defendant's money on February 9, and that he had determined to beat the victim the next time he saw him. When he saw the victim crossing the street a few minutes later, he became so enraged that he leapt out of the defendant's car and proceeded to beat and kick the victim.
In support of his motion in limine, the prosecutor argued that evidence of Ramirez's motive constituted prior bad act evidence against the victim that could not properly be used to impeach him. The prosecutor also argued that the incident was too remote in time to be relevant. The defendant argued that the evidence was relevant to show Ramirez's motive and state of mind, and to show that the victim and Ramirez knew one another. The judge ruled that the reasons advanced by the defendant did not go to any live issues in the case, and she allowed the motion in limine.
3. Right to present a defense. The defendant argues that the exclusion of evidence of Ramirez's motive to beat the victim violated his right to present a full defense under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
The defendant relies on a narrow line of cases in which convictions were reversed because a defendant was precluded from presenting evidence, including motive evidence, that some other person committed the crime. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Jewett, 392 Mass. 558 (1984); Commonwealth v. Keizer, 377 Mass. 264 (1979); Commonwealth v. Murphy, 282 Mass. 593 (1933). Those cases are distinguishable. In each of those cases, there was significant evidence of misidentification of the defendant as the perpetrator, and fairness demanded that the defendant be given an opportunity to present evidence that a third person committed a strikingly similar crime, not too remote in time or place, that would be relevant to the issue of misidentification. Here, the defendant was not misidentified in the sense that he did not claim that he was not present when the crime was committed. Moreover, he was permitted to present evidence that someone else, Ramirez in particular, committed the crime. Indeed, the Commonwealth's theory was that Ramirez had also participated in the attack on the victim, thus eliminating any dispute as to...
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