Commonwealth v. Letkowski
| Decision Date | 09 September 2014 |
| Docket Number | SJC–11556. |
| Citation | 469 Mass. 603,15 N.E.3d 207 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Mikolaj K. LETKOWSKI. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
469 Mass. 603
15 N.E.3d 207
COMMONWEALTH
v.
Mikolaj K. LETKOWSKI.
SJC–11556.
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.
Argued April 10, 2014.
Decided Sept. 9, 2014.
Charles W. Rankin (Kerry A. Haberlin with him), Boston, for the defendant.
Bethany C. Lynch, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Present: IRELAND, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, GANTS, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.1
Opinion
BOTSFORD, J.
After a jury trial, the defendant, Mikolaj Letkowski, was convicted of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape, armed robbery, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and intimidation of a witness. The defendant appealed, and the Appeals Court affirmed the convictions. Commonwealth v. Letkowski, 83 Mass.App.Ct. 847, 991 N.E.2d 1106 (2013). We granted the defendant's application for further appellate review, limited to issues concerning the prosecutor's references to the defendant's invocation of his rights as set forth in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444–445, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), at trial. We conclude that the prosecutor's references to the defendant's invocation of his Miranda rights were improper. We conclude also, however, that in the particular circumstances of this
case, the improper references, which were not objected to at trial, did not raise a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice. We affirm the defendant's convictions.
1. Background. a. Facts. The jury could have found the following. At approximately 11:30 p.m. on April 17, 2006, the victim, a student at a college in Springfield, drove from her off-campus job and entered the parking lot of her campus dormitory. When she pulled into the parking lot, she noticed the defendant walking on the sidewalk near one of the dormitories. The victim parked her car. While she was collecting her belongings from it, the defendant approached her and asked whether she knew where a set of nearby dormitories was located. After answering him, the victim returned to gathering her belongings; when she turned around again, the defendant had a knife in his hand and ordered the victim back into her car. He then ordered the victim to give him one hundred dollars, but she told him that she did not have that much money on her. The defendant drove the victim's motor vehicle (with the victim in the front passenger seat) to an automated teller machine (ATM) in West Springfield, declining to go to the ATM across from the college because, as he later told the police, it was too well lit and was close to a coffee shop which was frequented by the police.2
Once they arrived at the ATM, the defendant ordered the victim to switch places with him; she complied and moved into the
driver's seat. He placed a black winter hat over his face as the victim drove through the ATM and aimed his face toward the passenger's side door to avoid being detected by video cameras. The victim removed sixty dollars from her bank account; the defendant removed the hat from his face only after they left the ATM.
The defendant then directed the victim to an apartment complex in Agawam where his former girl friend used to live. He took the victim to the woods behind the complex and twice forced her to perform oral sex; he also digitally penetrated her. During the second instance of oral sex, a car pulled into the apartment complex, which prompted the defendant to have the victim stop and to tell her that, if anyone came into the woods, she should tell them that they were just “making out.” The defendant then hit the victim with a belt, directed her to get dressed, brought her to the bottom of a hill, and told her that he did not believe that she would not go to the police and that he could just stab her then and throw her in some nearby water.
They returned to the car, and the victim drove back toward campus. The defendant made her enter campus from a particular direction that had fewer lights and video cameras. Once the victim parked her car near her dormitory, the defendant escorted her to her door. Before leaving, he insisted that, should the victim go to the police, he knew her home address and where she lived on campus so he could find her.3
The next day, Longmeadow police officers seized both a knit hat and a knife from the defendant's car during a valid traffic stop of the defendant, but did not
arrest him at that point. The defendant later admitted to police that the knit hat recovered was the one used during the robbery.4 In addition, a piece of paper containing the victim's name and information was recovered from a trash barrel outside the defendant's home during the execution of a search warrant. Analysis of fingerprints lifted from the victim's car revealed that the fingerprints located on the driver's side front door
window and passenger's side front door window matched the defendant's prints. The defendant's deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was also a match with a vaginal swab taken from the victim.5
b. Defendant's statement to police.6 On April 19, 2006, the defendant was arrested in his parents' home. The defendant's mother provided the arresting officers with the defendant's prescription pain medication,7 and he was thereafter taken to the Springfield police department. On arrival, the defendant was read the Miranda warnings, as well as his right to a prompt arraignment. He told the officers that he understood those rights but stated that he did not wish to speak with them.8 After this invocation, the officers took the defendant to be booked; in conjunction with the booking process, he was photographed and fingerprinted, and submitted to a DNA test. While he was in the booking area, the defendant received some of his prescription pain medication.
After his fingerprints had been taken and the DNA swab obtained, the defendant told the officers that he wanted to give a statement. Accordingly, two hours after he had initially invoked his Miranda rights, the defendant was escorted back to the police interview room where he again was advised of his Miranda rights and his right to prompt arraignment. He indicated that he understood the rights and that he wanted to talk with the officers. The defendant's resulting statement contained portions that implicated him in the robbery of the victim, but he denied sexually assaulting and beating her.
c. References to defendant's invocation of Miranda rights. Before trial, the defendant moved to suppress his statements to the police, asserting, in part, that his statements were not voluntary because the officers withheld the defendant's prescription pain medication and told him they would provide the defendant with his medication if he reconsidered talking to them. After
an evidentiary hearing, the motion judge, who was not the trial judge, did not accept the defendant's allegation about withheld medication, concluded that the defendant's statements were voluntary based on the totality of the circumstances, and ultimately denied the motion to suppress in its entirety. The defendant based his defense at trial on his claim that he lacked criminal responsibility, and informed the prosecutor and the
trial judge at the outset of the trial that voluntariness of the defendant's statements to the police remained a live issue.
In three different portions of the trial, the prosecutor referred to the defendant's initial invocation of his Miranda right to remain silent and not to speak with police: during her direct examination of Detective Eugene Dean of the Springfield police department; in her cross-examination of the defendant's expert witness, Dr. Melvin Lurie; and in her closing argument.
(i) Detective Dean. On the first day of Dean's testimony, the prosecutor elicited in her direct examination the following:
The Prosecutor: “[C]an you explain to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury how you went over the Miranda warnings with him?”
The Witness: “Line by line. Read question number one, and he would read before we ask him any questions.... Number eight is, ‘Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to me now?’ Stated he understood it, put his initials, but then wrote the word ‘no’, meaning he did not wish to talk with us any further.”
...
The Prosecutor: “Showing you this document, can you explain to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what that document is.”
The Witness: “Yes. That document is your right to a prompt arraignment....”
The Prosecutor: “Did you go over that document with [the defendant]?”
The Witness: “Yes, in the same manner as I did in the first document.... ‘Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to me now?’ He again wrote, ‘No.’ ”
The prosecutor thereafter introduced into evidence the “Miranda Warning” and “Arraignment Warning” forms, both of which evidenced
the defendant's initial invocation of his right to remain silent in his own...
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