Commonwealth v. Gumkowski

Decision Date04 May 2021
Docket NumberSJC-12670
Parties COMMONWEALTH v. Matthew GUMKOWSKI.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Michael J. Fellows, Northampton, for the defendant.

Stephen C. Nadeau, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Wendlandt, & Georges, JJ.

LOWY, J.

The defendant, Matthew Gumkowski, was convicted by a jury of murder in the first degree on a theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty for the killing of Joseph Kilroy.1 The Commonwealth presented evidence that the defendant robbed the victim, and then beat, strangled, and stabbed him to death. The verdict came in the defendant's second trial, after the first trial ended in a mistrial because the jury were unable to reach a verdict.

In this direct appeal, the defendant argues first that his cell site location information (CSLI)2 and any "fruits" derived from it should have been suppressed, and second that seven aspects of the jury instructions were erroneous. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm, and we decline to exercise our authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.

1. Background. We summarize the evidence at trial, reserving certain details for our analysis of the issues.

The victim was found dead at his Attleboro apartment on July 10, 2011. Sometime between 8:30 P.M. and 9 P.M. , the victim's downstairs neighbors heard noises that sounded like furniture being moved about. Shortly after 9 P.M. , the smoke alarms sounded. When firefighters arrived minutes later, they found the victim's body lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. The fire that had started on the victim's bed was no longer active, the sprinklers were on, and the contents of the room were soaked. The victim had been beaten, strangled, and stabbed. A medical examiner testified that, based on the bleeding, the victim was likely alive when he suffered the blunt force injuries, but was already dead or near death when he was stabbed.

Police photographed the room to document its state at the time the body was discovered. They tested for fingerprints at the scene, and they recovered various objects from inside the apartment for testing, but no usable fingerprints were found, likely because of the sprinklers.

The defendant knew the victim and had bought drugs from him in the past. In July 2011, the defendant was using approximately a gram of heroin per day. On the morning of July 10, the defendant visited the victim's apartment, hoping to sell him a ring. The victim knocked on the door of his neighbor across the hall -- a former jeweler -- and asked him to look at the ring. When the neighbor looked at the ring, he expressed skepticism about its value. The neighbor saw another man standing in the victim's apartment; the neighbor described the man as white, with a medium build and blonde hair. The neighbor later identified the defendant as the man who had been in the victim's apartment that morning from a photograph shown to him by police.

The defendant's girlfriend testified that in the early evening of July 10, she had been with the defendant in a park in Attleboro, where she had fallen asleep. When she awoke around 8 P.M. , the defendant was gone. She called the defendant several times between 8:15 P.M. and 9:09 P.M. , including on cell phones borrowed from two strangers. Initially, she did not get an answer, but she eventually spoke to the defendant. She then met up with the defendant shortly after the 9:09 P.M. cell phone call. State police Trooper Daniel Giossi testified that the defendant's cell phone records showed calls taking place from the defendant's cell phone between around 8 P.M. and 9:15 P.M. , and the location data showed that the cell phone was in the Attleboro area at the time of the calls.3

The defendant was arrested on July 12, 2011, at his girlfriend's mother's house.4 The defendant became a suspect after law enforcement examined both the victim's and the defendant's cell phone records, as discussed infra. Before he was taken into custody, police patted him down and found a hypodermic needle in his pocket; testing later revealed traces of heroin. While the defendant was being booked, an officer noticed spots of blood on the defendant's shoes. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing revealed that the blood matched that of the victim. Two additional spots of blood found on a T-shirt and pack of cigarettes from the defendants’ backpack also matched that of the victim.

After his arrest, the defendant waived his Miranda rights and was interviewed by police. That interview was recorded, and the recording was entered in evidence. The defendant initially denied involvement, but he eventually said that he had gone to the victim's apartment on the evening of July 10 to buy heroin. He told police that two other men were present while he was there. The first man arrived to sell the victim cigarettes and stayed ten to fifteen minutes. The defendant described the second man but could not identify him, and said that the second man was still at the apartment when the defendant left. The defendant stated that he left the apartment after purchasing drugs. He explained that he had initially lied about visiting the victim because he had been there to purchase drugs, and because he later heard about the fire and homicide from the news.

At trial, the defendant testified and provided a somewhat different account of his time at the victim's apartment. He identified the cigarette seller as a man named Brian Singer. He stated that after Singer had left and while the second, unidentified, man was in the apartment, the victim brandished a knife and provoked a fight with the defendant over money that the defendant owed him. The defendant said he struck the victim several times in the face, and the victim dropped the knife. He then grabbed his backpack and left. The defendant stated that in his initial interview after being arrested, he had lied about getting in a fight because he had seen the news and had heard that there had been a fire and a homicide there.

2. Discussion. a. Motion to suppress. "When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we accept the judge's findings of fact and will not disturb them absent clear error." Commonwealth v. Watson, 455 Mass. 246, 250, 915 N.E.2d 1052 (2009). However, we undertake "an independent determination as to the correctness of the judge's application of constitutional principles to the facts as found." Id.

The defendant's cell phone records in this case included subscriber information, call logs, and CSLI.5 The subscriber information and the call logs are not subject to the warrant requirement under Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 230, 251, 4 N.E.3d 846 (2014), S.C., 470 Mass. 837, 26 N.E.3d 709 and 472 Mass. 448, 35 N.E.3d 688 (2015). Thus, only the defendant's CSLI is at issue. The defendant seeks to suppress both the CSLI itself, as well as any fruits derived therefrom.

i. Investigation leading to defendant's arrest. We recite the facts the motion judge found following an evidentiary hearing, supplemented with undisputed facts from the record. Commonwealth v. Jones-Pannell, 472 Mass. 429, 431, 35 N.E.3d 357 (2015).

When officers discovered the victim's body at his residence, they also found the victim's cell phone. However, police were unable to extract any information from it because it was soaked. A neighbor provided the victim's cell phone number, and using that, Trooper Giossi obtained the victim's call logs and other information from his service provider, Sprint. In the call logs, Giossi focused on incoming and outgoing calls occurring shortly before 9 P.M. , when witnesses reported hearing commotion coming from the victim's apartment. Giossi then made a second request to Sprint for information pertaining to two of those numbers pursuant to the exigent circumstances provision of the Stored Communications Act (SCA), 18 U.S.C. § 2702(c)(4).6

One of the numbers was registered to "Matthew Shady" and listed a West Warwick, Rhode Island, address.7 In addition to that subscriber information, the records showed the dates, times, and durations of incoming and outgoing calls, as well as CSLI. Troopers called the local police department and learned that the West Warwick address was valid and that the resident was the defendant. Local police had previously interacted with the defendant and sent Giossi a photograph of the defendant, as well as incident reports of some of his previous arrests. From these documents, Giossi learned that the defendant was blonde and muscular, and that he matched the description of the man that Singer, a friend of the victim, had seen talking to the victim on the morning of July 10. Giossi examined the defendant's CSLI and determined that it placed his cell phone in the Attleboro area on the evening of July 10.

On July 11, Giossi interviewed Singer, who had gone to the victim's apartment at around 8 P.M. on the day of the murder to sell the victim two packs of cigarettes, and who had stayed for about twenty minutes. While Singer was there, the victim introduced him to a man named "Matt." The man was muscular, with a crew cut, blonde hair, blue eyes, and tattoos. Based on this information, law enforcement prepared a photographic array, including the photograph of the defendant that the West Warwick police had sent. From the array, Singer identified the defendant as the blonde man he had seen in the victim's apartment.8

Troopers then attempted to locate the defendant. On the defendant's call log, they noticed recent calls to a land line telephone number, and subsequently ascertained the address associated with it. On July 12, Giossi visited that address and spoke with the occupant, Nita Rose. Rose stated that her daughter was dating the defendant, and that the defendant had left some of his property there and likely would return to retrieve it.

Later that day, Rose called the State police to say that she had just heard from her daughter,...

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    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
    • 21 Julio 2023
    ...was only cumulative and corroborative of Cruz's stronger testimony that placed the defendant at the scene of the shooting. See Gumkowski, 487 Mass. at 322-323; Vazquez, 478 Mass. at 446-447. Given the force the defendant's admissions to which Cruz testified, "we are substantially confident ......

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