Commonwealth v. Harris

• Decision Date: 03 February 2022
• Docket Number: 21-P-180
• Citation: 182 N.E.3d 334 (Table),100 Mass.App.Ct. 1123
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Ronnie HARRIS.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

100 Mass.App.Ct. 1123

182 N.E.3d 334 (Table)

COMMONWEALTH

v.Ronnie HARRIS.¹

21-P-180

Appeals Court of Massachusetts.

Entered: February 3, 2022.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

After a jury trial, the defendant was convicted of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of fourteen. G. L. c. 265, § 13B. On appeal, he raises various claims based on the first complaint doctrine. We affirm.

The defendant's first argument is that the victim's mother should not have been permitted to testify as the first complaint witness, because the victim's friend, not her mother, was the first person she told of the sexual assault. This argument fails on the facts. Based on the friend's testimony, the judge ruled "as a matter of fact" that the friend had "no recollection of whether ... an allegation about ... the incident [the defendant was] on trial for ... was made in [the relevant] conversation."³ Accordingly, we discern no abuse of discretion in the judge's ruling that the victim's friend was not the proper first complaint witness.⁴ See generally Commonwealth v. Aviles, 461 Mass. 60, 73 (2011).

The defendant next argues the first complaint was the letter that the victim gave to her mother detailing the allegations, and the mother should not have been permitted to read it or to recount the circumstances of its transmittal. We are unpersuaded. As the recipient of the letter, the mother was permitted to authenticate it by explaining where she got it, see Mass. G. Evid. § 901(a) (2021), and to testify about the general demeanor of the victim and "circumstances surrounding" the first complaint. See Commonwealth v. King, 445 Mass. 217, 246 (2005). Further, once the letter was admitted into evidence, the judge was permitted to allow the mother to read it to the jury. See Commonwealth v. McNulty, 458 Mass. 305, 321 (2010).

The defendant's third argument is that it was error to allow the mother to allude to her daughter's having reported her allegations to the police. However, as defense counsel made clear during his opening argument, the defendant himself was relying on evidence of the victim's having reported her allegations to the police.⁵ Moreover, the jury hardly would have been surprised to hear that the daughter had reported the incident to the police. The mother's passing reference to her daughter's having reported the allegations to the police in any event did not give rise to a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice. Commonwealth v. Dirgo, 474 Mass. 1012, 1016 (2016).

The mother also testified that the defendant touched the victim "inappropriately sexually." As the Commonwealth concedes, this signaled the mother's belief that the defendant sexually assaulted her daughter, which belief was irrelevant. See Commonwealth v. McCoy, 456 Mass. 838, 846 (2010). However, the mother's conclusory statement was consistent with the defendant's theory at trial that the allegations were fabricated as a...