Commonwealth v. Dunphe
| Decision Date | 07 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | SJC-12533 |
| Citation | 153 N.E.3d 1254,485 Mass. 871 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Aldo W. DUNPHE. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Leslie W. O'Brien, Boston, for the defendant.
Susan M. Oftring, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Present: Gants, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, & Cypher, JJ.1
On November 5, 2013, four days after he was voluntarily admitted to the psychiatric ward of the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center (medical center), the defendant physically attacked and killed Ratna Bhattarai, another patient there. The sole issue at trial was whether the Commonwealth had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was criminally responsible for the killing.
There was no dispute that the defendant had smoked cannabis almost daily, often in large amounts, for approximately six or seven years before he was admitted to the psychiatric ward and that he had not smoked cannabis after he was admitted. Nor was there any dispute that, at the time of the killing, the defendant suffered from hallucinations and believed, with no rational basis, that the victim was his biological father, who had abused the defendant as a child.
The Commonwealth's expert testified that, at the time of the killing, the defendant suffered from a "substance-induced psychotic disorder
and a cannabis withdrawal condition" that resulted in hallucinations; the expert further testified that the defendant did not have a mental disease or defect. The defense expert testified that the defendant's delusions at the time of the killing were consistent with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, which he characterized as a mental disease or defect. He noted that some of the symptoms of cannabis withdrawal may have played a role in the killing and that it was "a bit of a challenge" to assess because some of the symptoms of cannabis withdrawal are the same as schizophrenia. But he declared that delusions and hallucinations are not part of cannabis withdrawal disorder and that the defendant's marijuana use, by itself, could not explain his conduct on the day of the killing.
A Superior Court jury, after having been provided by the judge with legal instructions regarding criminal responsibility that closely tracked those in our Model Jury Instructions on Homicide (2018)2 , found the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree on the theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty.3 We conclude that that there is a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice arising from the application of our model jury instructions regarding criminal responsibility to the peculiar facts in these cases. We therefore vacate the convictions and remand the cases for a new trial. We also provisionally revise our model jury instructions regarding criminal responsibility to address what we conclude is a potential and problematic risk of confusion.4
Background. 1. Evidence at trial. We summarize the facts that the jury could have found at trial, reserving certain details for our discussion of the legal issues. See Commonwealth v. Waweru, 480 Mass. 173, 174, 102 N.E.3d 391 (2018).
a. Events leading to the defendant's admission to the psychiatric ward. When the defendant was eight years old, he and his younger sister were adopted. His adoptive mother testified that, although he had been a good student, he had difficulty adjusting to college and began experimenting with cannabis during his freshman year.
In 2008, after having dropped out of college, the defendant began dating a woman he later married. The defendant's wife testified that in the first couple of years of their relationship, the defendant used cannabis "occasionally," once or twice a month, but in 2010, he began to smoke more frequently. Although he sometimes stopped using cannabis for weeks at a time, there were other periods when he smoked on a daily basis. She never saw him suffer from withdrawal symptoms.
The couple dated for five years before getting married on October 13, 2013. It was in the months leading up to their wedding that the defendant's wife began to notice changes in the defendant's personality and behavior. In February 2013, the defendant accused her of giving his mother "dirty looks." He also accused his wife of having been unfaithful, both before their wedding and during their honeymoon. He made a number of additional unsubstantiated accusations during that period, such as that she had told her father that the defendant had beaten their cat and that her mother had wanted the family dog to be killed. During their honeymoon, the defendant also expressed concern that his wife was being followed.
When the couple returned to Massachusetts after their honeymoon, the defendant continued to accuse his wife of infidelity and called her "psychotic." She found it increasingly difficult to have conversations with the defendant because he would skip between topics without finishing his train of thought. He also began staring into space and smiling at inappropriate times, and his laugh changed. The defendant's wife said that the defendant began to complain that he was having bad dreams and difficulty sleeping.
On October 31, 2013, the defendant's wife received a telephone call from the defendant saying he was "going to rehab" and would not be home for a few weeks. Later that night, he came home and told her that he had been followed by members of a biker gang called the Vigilantes and that he had considered killing himself by overdosing on sleeping pills. He also told her that he wanted to break up with her and behaved "aggressive[ly]" toward her, which he had never done before. He eventually left and went to his parents' house.
b. The killing. The next day, on November 1, 2013, the defendant was voluntarily admitted to the psychiatric ward. Doctors diagnosed him with "Psychosis
Not-Otherwise-Specified" because they could not determine whether his psychosis originated from his recent cannabis use or from a preexisting mental disease. The defendant's wife and his adoptive parents went to visit him on November 2, and he told them that he had seen his biological father in the psychiatric ward. On the evening of November 4, he spoke about the victim to a nurse, telling her: In reality, the defendant's biological father lived in Guatemala and had abused the defendant as a young child.
On November 5, the defendant suffocated the victim with a pillow, punched him repeatedly in the face, smashed his head against the cement floor, and finally stuffed cloth into the victim's nose and mouth. The defendant then washed his hands, gathered his clothes, and went back to his room.
A medical center police officer arrived shortly after the killing and spoke with the defendant. The defendant was lying in bed, with blood on his socks and on his pants legs. The officer recited the Miranda warnings, and the defendant said that he understood them. The officer asked him what had happened, and the defendant said that the victim, whose name he did not know, had threatened to kill him earlier in the day. He said he waited for the nurse to leave the victim's room after she had brought him lunch, then entered the room, grabbed the victim by the neck, and dragged him to the ground. He then began to punch the victim, and later stuffed towels in his mouth and in his nostrils. He said he did not mean to kill the victim; he just wanted to beat him up.
Later that day, two State police troopers arrived to interview the defendant. They again gave him Miranda warnings, which he again said he understood. The defendant admitted to killing the victim, stating that he did so because the victim was his father who had threatened to kill him and was keeping him in the psychiatric ward against his will.
The victim died several days later due to injuries resulting from the defendant's attack.
c. Expert testimony. At trial, the defendant did not deny killing the victim but claimed that he lacked criminal responsibility "because, due to a mental disease or defect, he lacked the substantial capacity at that time ... to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct [or] to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law." Commonwealth v. DiPadova, 460 Mass. 424, 428, 951 N.E.2d 891 (2011), citing Commonwealth v. McHoul, 352 Mass. 544, 546-547, 226 N.E.2d 556 (1967).
The defendant's expert, Dr. John Daignault, testified that, at the time of the killing, the defendant "was in the throes of an acute psychotic episode
with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and he perceived the victim as an imminent threat to him; and he believed, in his delusional state, that he was protecting his own life from the threat that [the victim], he believed, posed to him." He noted that the defendant's hallucinations, delusions, and grossly disorganized behavior -- such as believing that a biker gang wanted to kill him and hearing a radio station in his head that relayed imaginary information about his wife committing adultery -- were consistent with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia around the time of the attack. He further cited the defendant's behavior immediately following the crime, such as calmly, coherently, and cooperatively admitting to the crime to the police while maintaining his strong belief that the victim was his biological father who had come to harm the defendant at the psychiatric ward. The defendant, Daignault reasoned, did not try to hide his culpability or the evidence of his guilt, nor did he express any anxiety for his actions, because he was "floridly psychotic" and not "malingering" at the time of the attack.
Daignault opined that the defendant had a mental disease or defect at the time of the killing: schizophrenia
. He also testified that he believed the defendant lacked the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct and that the...
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