Commonwealth v. Lugo
| Decision Date | 18 January 2023 |
| Docket Number | 21-P-881,21-P-882 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. KATHYANA LUGO (and a companion case [1]). |
| Court | Appeals Court of Massachusetts |
Hampden. September 12, 2022.
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on June 11, 2019. Pretrial motions to suppress were heard by Jane E. Mulqueen, J.
Applications for leave to prosecute interlocutory appeals were allowed by Scott L. Kafker, J., and Dalila Argaez Wendlandt, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk, and the appeals were reported by them to the Appeals Court.
Roy H Anderson for Kathyana Lugo.
Joseph N. Schneiderman for Jesmillie Perez.
Aileen S. Kim (Katherine E. McMahon, Assistant District Attorney also present) for the Commonwealth.
Present: Desmond, Sacks, & D'Angelo, JJ.
The defendants, Kathyana Lugo and Jesmillie Perez, each stand indicted on separate, single counts of willful interference with a criminal investigation. See G. L. c. 268, § 13B. A Superior Court judge denied their motions to suppress statements they made to police in the early morning concerning a shooting that occurred a few hours before. The judge, despite agreeing that the defendants had been illegally seized and functionally arrested, ruled sua sponte that the taint of that illegality had dissipated by the time the defendants had been transported to the police station and interrogated. The defendants' applications for interlocutory appeals were allowed by single justices of the Supreme Judicial Court. Because we conclude that the defendants remained in custody throughout their interactions with the police and that no attenuation dissipating the taint of those seizures occurred, we reverse.
Background.
"We recite the facts as found by the motion judge, supplemented by certain undisputed facts and by our own viewing of" video recordings of both the interrogations and surveillance footage. Commonwealth v. Baye, 462 Mass. 246, 247 (2012). We also supplement those findings with facts drawn from the police officers' testimony, which the judge implicitly credited. See Commonwealth v. Jones-Pannell, 472 Mass. 429, 431 (2015).
At approximately 1:47 A.M. on April 14, 2019, the Springfield police department received information that shots had been fired and an officer was down at a local nightclub. There were also reports of a "light-colored" sport utility vehicle (SUV) leaving the scene.
At approximately 2 A.M., security from the nearby hospital alerted police that a white SUV had arrived at the hospital with three occupants, one of whom had gunshot wounds. Officer James Kelly, who had been working a police detail nearby, responded to the hospital. On arrival, Kelly observed bullet holes and blood on the SUV. He learned that two women, the defendants, had arrived with the gunshot victim.
Kelly, wearing a bright yellow police jacket with a visible badge, approached the defendants in the hospital's emergency room (ER) waiting area and collected their names, dates of birth, and telephone numbers. The defendants indicated that they had come from the nightclub and their friend, Emmanuel Adorno, had been shot in the nearby parking lot. After speaking to the defendants, Kelly took no further action. The defendants were allowed to remain, unaccompanied, in the ER waiting area, where they can be observed on the hospital's surveillance video recording making phone calls, washing up, and conversing privately.
After hearing that the family of the injured officer -- who was also brought to this hospital -- would soon be arriving, Kelly and two other officers handcuffed both of the defendants in the ER lobby, escorted them outside, and placed them in the back of a locked, caged police cruiser for approximately one hour both for "their safety and security" and because Kelly had also determined that the police "needed to have a longer conversation" with them. Kelly told the defendants that they were not under arrest and were "merely being detained until we sorted everything out." He further informed them that they were being detained "merely for safety and security."[2] He testified that the handcuffing and placement in the marked cruiser of the defendants, whom he considered "[p]otential witnesses," was "protocol for . . . an investigation." When asked about this protocol, Kelly testified, When asked if he had previously done this with potential witnesses, he testified, "I've done it several times before." Kelly also confirmed that the defendants "were taken to the police station by [his] decision alone, not their acquiescence."
Another officer, Detective Timothy Martin, arrived at the hospital to transport the defendants to the police station for their statements approximately one hour after the defendants had been placed in the locked cruiser. The defendants were still in the cruiser when Martin arrived. Martin did not see the defendants in the cruiser, and they were not handcuffed when he observed them standing outside of the cruiser.[3] He testified that they appeared "shaken up." In addition to Kelly and Martin, other uniformed officers also stood around the defendants. Martin testified that the defendants were "directed" into his unmarked cruiser.[4] Based on the officers' testimony, it is apparent that the defendants were directed into Martin's unmarked vehicle within less than ten minutes of their being unhandcuffed and removed from the marked cruiser. When asked how the defendants entered his vehicle, Martin testified, He did not handcuff them, take their belongings, or pat frisk them; however, he did not recall whether he asked the defendants if they wanted or were willing to go to the station in his vehicle or if he informed them that they could leave.
At the police station, Martin escorted the defendants inside through the employee entrance,[5] to a second-floor hallway, where they were directed to sit on separate benches at opposite ends of the hallway "so that [the defendants could] not confer[] or speak[] about each other's perspective that could sway their own." At some point, each defendant separately used a restroom. For reasons unclear from the record, the defendants were directed to use the men's restroom. While each defendant was in the restroom, a police officer stood outside the door.
A detective, Daniel Reigner, took statements from both defendants separately.[6] He did not administer Miranda warnings to either defendant because he did not consider them suspects or under arrest. He did not tell them that they were free to leave or that they did not have to answer his questions because "they never asked." He did not advise them that they could leave if they so wished. The questions Reigner asked the defendants included whether Adorno had a gun or fired a gun, whether there was a gun inside the defendants' SUV, whether anyone else had been in the SUV, and whether the SUV had made any other stops, and if so, exactly where those stops occurred. After questioning, as Reigner and Perez were leaving the interview room, Perez "asked [Reigner] something to the effect of if she was going to be in trouble or if it was going to show up on" a criminal offender record information (CORI), at which point Reigner laughed and told her she was just a witness and that "we're going to get you out of here as soon as we're done." After the interviews, Martin transported both defendants home in his unmarked cruiser.
A little over one month after the shooting, each defendant was indicted on a single charge of willful interference with a criminal investigation based on the substance of the interviews and Reigner's later viewing video surveillance of the scene of the shooting.
The defendants filed motions to suppress their statements, and an evidentiary hearing took place. The Commonwealth argued that the tense circumstances at the hospital justified the detention of the defendants for their own safety and, therefore, no custodial interrogation occurred; the defendants argued that they were in custody from the time they were handcuffed until after their statements were taken.
The judge denied the motions and issued an essentially identical written memorandum of decision in each case. She concluded, and we agree, that Kelly's handcuffing and placement of the defendants in the locked cruiser, without reasonable suspicion or probable cause, violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Nevertheless, the judge then concluded that the statements did not need to be suppressed, because the connection between that initial detention at the hospital and the later statements at the police station had become "so attenuated as to dissipate the taint."[7] Specifically, she determined that the removal of the handcuffs and transportation of the defendants to the station in an unmarked police car constituted intervening events, and the officer's conduct was not intended to flout the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
Discussion.
"Absent clear error, we accept and adopt the findings of the motion judge, but we 'independently determine the correctness of the judge's application of constitutional principles to the facts as found.'" Commonwealth v. Narcisse, 457 Mass. 1, 5 (2010), quoting Commonwealth v. DePeiza, 449 Mass 367, 369 (2007). Because the judge correctly concluded that the encounter between the defendants and Kelly escalated into an illegal seizure when Kelly placed them in handcuffs, we begin our analysis after the defendants were released...
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