Commonwealth v. Chambers

• Decision Date: 13 June 2013
• Docket Number: SJC–11230.
• Citation: 465 Mass. 520,989 N.E.2d 483
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Anthony CHAMBERS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

465 Mass. 520
989 N.E.2d 483

COMMONWEALTH
v.
Anthony CHAMBERS.

SJC–11230.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,
Suffolk.

Argued Feb. 5, 2013.
Decided June 13, 2013.

[989 N.E.2d 484]

Kenneth I. Seiger for the defendant.

Ian Polumbaum, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Present: IRELAND, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, GANTS, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.

[989 N.E.2d 485]

GANTS, J.

[465 Mass. 520]The defendant was convicted by a Superior Court jury of the involuntary manslaughter of Edward Quiles. There was no dispute that the defendant had stabbed the victim to death, but the defendant contended that he did so in self-defense. [465 Mass. 521]Before trial, the judge ruled that, under our common-law rule of evidence established in Commonwealth v. Adjutant, 443 Mass. 649, 824 N.E.2d 1 (2005)( Adjutant ), the defendant could offer evidence that the victim participated in a violent assault of a third person twenty-one months before the victim died in support of the defendant's claim that the victim was the first aggressor in the incident that resulted in the victim's death. In his opening statement, defense counsel promised to offer this evidence, but later in the trial the judge, sua sponte, reversed her ruling and found that this evidence was not admissible because there was no dispute that the victim was the first aggressor. The judge additionally refused defense counsel's request to inform the jury that she found the promised evidence of the victim's prior violent act inadmissible because there was no evidence that the defendant was the first aggressor. The primary issue on appeal is whether the judge erred in excluding this evidence on this ground where the evidence indicated that the victim was plainly the first to provoke a nondeadly altercation but where it was hotly disputed whether the defendant or the victim was the first to grab the knife that escalated the nondeadly conflict into a deadly one.

We conclude that a judge in her discretion may admit so-called “Adjutant evidence” ¹ where there is a dispute at trial as to who threatened or struck the first blow or as to who initiated the threat or use of deadly force. The judge here exercised her discretion to admit the proffered Adjutant evidence if the identity of the first aggressor was in dispute, but mistakenly understood that Adjutant evidence was admissible only where there was a dispute as to who threatened or struck the first blow. We conclude that this mistake infected her ruling, and caused evidence to be excluded that in her discretion otherwise would have been [465 Mass. 522]admitted. We also conclude that this mistake, when considered with defense counsel's unfulfilled promise of the Adjutant evidence to the jury, resulted in prejudice that requires the conviction to be vacated and the case to be remanded for a new trial.

Background. In light of the issues on appeal, we focus our summary of the facts on the evidence presented at trial as to the identity of the first aggressor. On February 10, 2008, the defendant was staying in a small apartment in Boston with James Ceurvels and Edward Quiles. All three men were regular drug users; Ceurvels used “crack” cocaine, while the defendant and Quiles primarily used heroin. Prior to the night in question, Ceurvels had never seen any conflicts or problems arise between the defendant and Quiles.

Other than the defendant, Ceurvels is the only living percipient witness to the

[989 N.E.2d 486]

altercation between Quiles and the defendant that led to Quiles's death. Ceurvels testified that, sometime after 9 p.m. on February 9, the defendant and Quiles showed him a golf ball-sized bag of heroin, which Ceurvels described as the most heroin he had ever seen at one time in one place. Over the course of the night, the defendant and Quiles went into the apartment's bathroom several times for approximately thirty to forty-five minutes at a time to inject heroin. All three went to sleep at around 4 a.m. on February 10.

Sometime in the morning, Ceurvels awoke when Quiles yelled about “a gram” that he could not find. He told Quiles to shut up, the apartment got quiet again, and Ceurvels went back to sleep. Ceurvels did not know whether the defendant participated in that conversation.

Sometime in the early afternoon, Ceurvels was again awakened by Quiles, who Ceurvels described as being “[p]retty agitated.” Ceurvels overheard Quiles telling the defendant, “Find my shit. Where's my shit?” Ceurvels testified that he heard the defendant respond in a “[p]retty mild” tone of voice, “I don't have your shit. I'll help you find your shit. Why would I take your shit?” A similar exchange continued over and over for approximately five minutes, along with “[s]tuff moving around, doors opening and closing.” When Ceurvels physically got up out of his bed, he observed Quiles and the defendant looking all over the apartment, and he understood them to be looking for the [465 Mass. 523]large bag of heroin. At this time, he did not observe any physical contact between them. Ceurvels then left the apartment to scrounge outside for partially smoked cigarettes that still had some tobacco in them.

After approximately ten minutes, Ceurvels returned to his apartment and saw Quiles and the defendant “having an all-out brawl, fistfight, wrestling brawl.” He testified that he observed “arms swinging, both arms swinging. And it looked like a wrestling match after that ... and then they fell ... out of my view and onto my bed.” He testified that he heard his bed and chair getting kicked “from the feet hitting the chair,” along with Quiles screaming at the top of his lungs. Before he got far enough into the apartment to regain his view of the combatants, he observed a large amount of blood on the floor that had not been there when he left. When he advanced far enough to see them again, Ceurvels observed the defendant on top of Quiles, with Quiles face down on the bed and with the defendant's arm over Quiles's head and back. At this point, Ceurvels heard Quiles say, “You stabbed me, you bastard. You stabbed me.” After this, Ceurvels turned around immediately and ran out of the apartment. Ceurvels never saw any weapon.

After leaving the apartment, Ceurvels went downstairs to the building's concierge and asked him to call the police and an ambulance. Officer Renisha Silva of the Boston police arrived, and as she entered the building, Ceurvels observed that the defendant left the building, passed Officer Silva, and said, “I'm out of here, dude. I'm bouncing.” The concierge told Officer Silva, “That's the guy,” and she chased after him. Officer Silva testified that she asked the defendant to show his hands, and the defendant ignored the instruction and kept walking away until Officer Silva pointed her gun at him and told him to stop and get down on the ground.

Ceurvels remained by the front door to the apartment building and soon witnessed the arrival of Juan Velasquez, who nodded his head at Ceurvels, but did not enter the apartment building. Ceurvels recognized the person later identified by the police as Velasquez because Quiles had brought Velasquez to Ceurvels's apartment two weeks

[989 N.E.2d 487]

earlier. After Velasquez looked at one of the police vehicles that had arrived on the scene, he took off running and was subsequently apprehended.

[465 Mass. 524]After Velasquez was detained, Officer Frank Nogueira knocked on the door of the apartment but no one answered. He saw that the door was unlocked but could only open it slightly because something was blocking it from inside the apartment. He forced the door open, knocking over a metal cart inside the apartment. He found the lifeless victim lying face down on the bed, with a three-inch long laceration in his neck. He saw on the floor the metal blade of a steak knife that had broken off its handle, and a detective later found the knife handle on a table nearby.

The forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy, Dr. Faryl Sandler, found a stab wound on the left side of Quiles's neck that punctured the left carotid and subclavian arteries, and ended in Quiles's chest cavity, which caused his death, and an incised wound on the right side of his neck with a length of one and one-eighth inches and a depth of one-eighth inch. The knife collected at the scene was consistent with both wounds on Quiles's neck. Dr. Sandler testified that a person with his carotid artery cut could remain conscious for a minute to a couple of minutes, then would start to lose consciousness due to the lack of oxygen to the brain, and would ultimately die within a couple of minutes if the artery were not repaired. There was also a small contusion on the left side of Quiles's forehead, an abrasion on the bridge of his nose, and a small abrasion on his left leg, but there were no wounds on his torso.

The defendant was brought to the police station, where Sergeant William E. Doogan provided him with Miranda warnings and proceeded to interrogate him about the incident. After Sergeant Doogan informed the defendant that he could refuse to have the interview recorded, the defendant said that he wanted the sergeant to stop recording, and the sergeant complied. At trial, Sergeant Doogan testified that, while the recorder was off, the defendant stated that Quiles “was crazy on drugs and was accusing [the defendant] of having stolen his drugs” before Quiles attacked him. “He defended himself and turned the knife back in on [Quiles].” While the recorder was off, the defendant also stated that (1) “[Quiles] had the knife. He got it out of the kitchen”; (2) “[Quiles] had called [Velasquez] to come down and shoot [the defendant]”; and (3) Quiles had “assaulted him” by “punch[ing] him in the head” while he was calling the [465 Mass. 525]police. Eventually, Sergeant Doogan raised the issue of recording the interview again, the defendant agreed to have the rest of the interview recorded, and the recorder was turned back on.

During the...