Commonwealth v. Girouard
| Decision Date | 08 March 2002 |
| Citation | 766 NE 2d 873,436 Mass. 657 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. CARL GIROUARD, SR. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.
James L. Sultan for the defendant.
Katherine E. McMahon, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
The victim in this case was brutally stabbed to death in August, 1988. Although the defendant was a suspect in the killing, he was not charged with the victim's murder until December, 1998. Thereafter, a jury in the Superior Court convicted him of murder in the first degree by reason of extreme atrocity or cruelty. In returning their verdict, the jury credited the Commonwealth's evidence, consisting of the defendant's incriminating statements, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test results, and other evidence that linked him to the homicide, and they rejected the defendant's contentions that the statement he made to police officers in July, 1998, was involuntary, and that he could not have been the killer because he is right-handed and the stab wounds had been inflicted on the victim by a left-handed person. Represented by new counsel on appeal, the defendant argues that we should order a new trial because (1) his statement made to police officers in July, 1998, was obtained in violation of his Miranda rights and was involuntary, and, therefore, should not have been admitted in evidence; (2) the prosecutor engaged in prejudicial acts of misconduct; and (3) opinion testimony concerning the DNA testing was improperly placed before the jury. We reject the defendant's arguments. We also conclude that there is no basis to exercise our authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to reduce the conviction to a lesser degree of guilt or to order a new trial. Accordingly, we affirm the conviction.
1. The defendant's trial counsel did not file a formal motion to suppress the defendant's July, 1998, statement. Rather, the prosecutor brought to the judge's attention that there might be an issue concerning the statement's admissibility, and the judge, over the objection of the defendant's trial counsel,1 decided, as matter of discretion, to conduct a pretrial evidentiary hearing on the issue.2 The judge concluded that the defendant's statement had been lawfully obtained and was voluntarily made, and the statement was later admitted at trial. The defendant's appellate counsel now contends that the judge erred in concluding that the interrogation of the defendant was noncustodial, and erred in admitting statements made by the defendant after he had invoked his right to counsel, and, alternatively, that the judge erred in admitting the defendant's statement because it was involuntary. To understand the present challenges, it is necessary to set forth what occurred after the murder in 1988, the evidence at the pretrial evidentiary hearing, the contention made by the defendant's trial counsel, and the judge's conclusions of law.
(a) From the Commonwealth's evidence at trial, the jury could have found the following. At about 7:30 P.M. on August 13, 1988, a man traveling with his father discovered the victim's body in the woods at a rest stop located near the Westfield-Holyoke line. The victim was naked, bruised, and had been repeatedly stabbed.
The victim was last seen with the defendant during the early morning of the day her body was found. The night before, at approximately 11:30 P.M., the victim was seen hitchhiking from downtown Westfield, seeking a ride to Holyoke. The defendant picked her up. At about midnight, they went to Foxy's Tea Room in Westfield, and had a couple of drinks. The defendant was wearing a belt with a knife holder. He left with the victim about one-half hour after they had arrived. The victim was never seen alive again.
State and local police processed the murder scene. The victim's shirt, shorts and underpants were recovered near her body. Her clothing was sent to the State police crime laboratory. Initial testing (not DNA testing) of the victim's underwear for sperm was inconclusive, but sperm cells were detected in her vagina. An autopsy of the victim's body was conducted at 6 A.M. on August 14, 1988. The medical examiner concluded that the victim died sometime between twelve to forty-eight hours prior to the autopsy. He noted abrasions, scratches, and bruises on the victim's body. He also noted marks consistent with blunt trauma injury or defensive wounds. He concluded that the victim had died from multiple stab wounds to her neck, chest, abdomen and back. She had been stabbed thirteen times, and had been alive when the majority of these wounds were inflicted.
The investigation of the victim's death centered on the defendant. State police obtained warrants to search his home and automobile. Testing revealed the presence of "occult"3 blood on his car's steering wheel and gear shift.
A few days after the victim's death, Westfield police questioned the defendant. After talking to police, the defendant signed a typewritten statement, in which he stated that he saw the victim hitchhiking, picked her up, and dropped her off outside the 49er Lounge. He recounted that he then went to Foxy's Tea Room for a beer. When confronted with information that he had been observed at Foxy's Tea Room with the victim, the defendant changed his story, admitting that he took the victim to Foxy's Tea Room, but insisted that thereafter, he dropped her off outside the 49er Lounge.
On June 8, 1998, the defendant was taken into custody for a parole violation (on charges unrelated to the victim's murder), after a suicide threat. The next day, two State troopers met the defendant at the office of his parole officer. The defendant agreed to provide them with a blood sample, which was submitted to a laboratory for analysis.
The defendant's blood, together with a portion of the underwear and a vaginal swab from the victim, as well as the victim's blood, were subjected to DNA testing by an analyst at Cellmark Diagnostics laboratory. The analyst concluded, from examining DNA obtained from the sperm fraction on the underwear and on the vaginal swab, that the sperm had been contributed by different donors. She also concluded that the defendant could be excluded as the donor of the sperm on the underwear, but could not be excluded as the donor of sperm on the vaginal swab.
After obtaining the results from the DNA testing, the police officers, on July 23, 1998, went to the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Concord (MCI, Concord), where the defendant was being held, to interview him.
(b) The sole witness at the pretrial evidentiary hearing was State Trooper William Loiselle. Trooper Loiselle's testimony described the July 23, 1998, interview, and was credited by the judge. The testimony may be summarized as follows:
Trooper Loiselle was accompanied on the visit to MCI, Concord, by Detective Baron Maruca of the Holyoke police department. The defendant was being held with the general prison population and was not segregated in the prison's mental heath unit. The officers were not in uniform and met with the defendant in an office used by the prison's internal security investigatory unit. The room, approximately sixteen feet by ten feet, contained a round table, chairs and windows. When the defendant arrived, the officers introduced themselves, although the defendant had met Trooper Loiselle the month before when the defendant had provided Trooper Loiselle with a blood sample.
After an initial greeting during which the defendant stated that he was doing well, that things were "going good" at home, and that he was back together with his wife, Trooper Loiselle read the defendant his Miranda rights from a card. The defendant stated that he understood those rights, signed the card containing the Miranda warnings from which Trooper Loiselle had read, and replied affirmatively that he wished to speak with the officers.
The officers first questioned the defendant about his recent suicide attempt. Detective Maruca asked the defendant if he had been serious about harming himself, and the defendant replied that he had not been serious, and that he told his wife he was suicidal because such talk "pisses her off." The defendant's explanation was consistent with the information provided to them by the defendant's parole officer and other law enforcement officers: that the defendant had feigned his recent suicide attempt because he was upset after being served with divorce papers. They also learned that after the alleged suicide attempt, the defendant had been released from a hospital where it had been determined that he was neither a threat to himself nor to others.
The officers then turned to the subject of the victim's murder in 1988, asking the defendant to review his 1988 statement to police. After doing so, the defendant said that it "sounded all right," and that he had nothing to add. Trooper Loiselle questioned the defendant about whether he had had sexual relations with the victim in August, 1988. The defendant repeatedly denied having any form of sexual contact with the victim. However, after learning from the officers that testing on his blood confirmed that his sperm was found inside the victim, the defendant admitted to having had intercourse with her. The defendant stated that he did not want his wife to discover that information.
The officers asked the defendant to recount his activities on August 12 and 13 of 1988. The defendant stated the following: after getting out of work on the evening of August 12, 1988, the defendant drank some beer and "did some cocaine." He then picked up the victim, who was hitchhiking, and drove to Foxy's Tea Room, where they each had a beer. They left Foxy's, returned to the defendant's car in the parking lot and had intercourse in the car. Afterward, the defendant dropped the victim off at the 49er Lounge and went home.
During further questioning, the defendant...
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