Commonwealth v. Martinez

• Decision Date: 07 February 2002
• Citation: 769 NE 2d 273,437 Mass. 84
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. ROBERT MARTINEZ.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

437 Mass. 84

769 NE 2d 273

COMMONWEALTH v. ROBERT MARTINEZ.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Plymouth.

February 7, 2002.

June 10, 2002.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.

David H. Erickson for the defendant.

Bridget Norton Middleton, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

MARSHALL, C.J.

In March, 1998, Robert Martinez was convicted of murder in the first degree on a theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty. Represented by new counsel, the defendant filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied without an evidentiary hearing by a judge who was not the trial judge.

The defendant now appeals from the jury verdict and from the denial of his motion for a new trial. As to the conduct of the trial, he challenges two evidentiary rulings of the judge, argues that a mistrial was necessitated by an outburst from the victim's sister while she was testifying, and takes issue with various jury instructions. In addition, the defendant argues that trial counsel was ineffective in two respects: for failing to investigate and impeach witnesses with their criminal records, and for not attempting to suppress the defendant's statement to police. As to his motion for a new trial, he argues that the prosecutor improperly withheld certain information concerning the criminal histories and dealings with the Commonwealth of three of its witnesses. He also challenges the denial of the motion without an evidentiary hearing and the denial of his request for postconviction discovery, and claims that a new trial is warranted because of what he argues is newly discovered evidence that another person confessed to the murder. There being no basis for ordering a new trial or for granting the defendant relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, we affirm the judgment and the order denying the defendant's motion for a new trial.

1. Facts. Viewed in its light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the evidence is as follows. The victim lived with her infant child in a second-floor apartment on Warren Avenue in Brockton. The defendant lived with his family in the same building on the third floor. In the early hours of Sunday, August 8, 1993, the victim was repeatedly stabbed and killed while at home in her apartment.¹ She and her baby were not discovered until two and one-half days later. The child was alive, but had suffered first-degree burns from a wet diaper, dehydration, and possible pneumonia. The defendant was indicted three years later, in October, 1996.

The events preceding the murder were as follows. On Saturday, August 7, 1993, the defendant was at a gathering in the first-floor apartment drinking beer with several others, including Jose Camacho. The gathering broke up after midnight. Camacho left the building, but returned some time later looking for a place to sleep. As Camacho passed the victim's apartment on the second floor, he overheard the defendant say in an angry tone from inside the apartment, "[G]ive me what I want and I won't hurt you." He heard a female voice, and what sounded like a muffled scream. Frightened, Camacho left the building.

Maureen Rautenberg, a neighbor living across the street, testified that, at approximately 1 A.M. on August 8, she heard a woman screaming for five minutes. Looking out her window, Rautenberg saw lights in the victim's apartment, where someone was moving around. A man in a gray-hooded sweatshirt emerged from the building and walked to a nearby bridge carrying a small plastic bag. He returned to the building, and within minutes, the lights in the victim's apartment went out. The man left the building again, and returned some thirty minutes later with four other men, two of whom went with the gray-hooded man into the building. The light in the victim's apartment went on briefly, and the men then left. Rautenberg had earlier seen the gray-hooded man sell drugs to her boy friend, Freddie Matias. Matias identified that man as the defendant.

Later that same Sunday, the defendant encountered Camacho, who saw that the defendant had a bloody knife. When asked for an explanation, the defendant responded that he "had slashed a bitch." There was evidence that the knife was of the size and shape that was capable of inflicting the victim's wounds.

In the course of the police investigation, the defendant hid from the police on multiple occasions, and provided them with a false name. On August 14, 1993, while the defendant was at the Brockton police department on another matter, he agreed to speak with a State trooper, and signed a form waiving his Miranda rights. He gave conflicting accounts of his whereabouts on August 7 and 8. He also admitted that he owned a knife, and said that he had either lost it, thrown it away, or left it at his mother's house. Before the interview ended, he provided hair and fiber samples to the police and allowed them to photograph him.² In 1996, the defendant was again interviewed by the State police. In the course of that interview, he was asked about the victim's baby, to which he responded: "I didn't hurt the baby," and then added, "I didn't hurt anyone."

The defendant made several inculpatory statements to others. Three to four hours after the body was discovered, he told his girl friend that they needed to pack their bags and leave for Puerto Rico because the police were "investigat[ing]" him. He asked her to hide him, and to tell the police that he was elsewhere. After hiding from the police on the night the body was discovered, he asked an acquaintance if the police thought he had "murdered the girl."

An informant who was incarcerated with the defendant testified that, in 1997, the defendant told him he had had a sexual relationship with the victim, and repeatedly described the victim as being sexually provocative. He told the informant that he had gone to the victim's apartment to collect money he was owed, and left when the victim said she did not have it. He returned later, he said, entered the unlocked apartment and found her dead body. Frightened, he claimed he left and came back with some friends to show them the victim's body.

2. Evidentiary issues. The defendant challenges two evidentiary rulings of the trial judge. Defense counsel objected to both rulings, and we review for prejudicial error. Commonwealth v. Vinnie, 428 Mass. 161, 163, cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1007 (1998). First, the judge excluded evidence that the defendant told police that he was willing to undergo a polygraph examination. The defendant sought to have the evidence admitted in order to show his state of mind, a consciousness of innocence.³ The judge's ruling was correct. Because in this Commonwealth polygraph evidence is inadmissible for any purpose in a criminal trial, Commonwealth v. Kent K., 427 Mass. 754, 763 (1998); Commonwealth v. Mendes, 406 Mass. 201, 212 (1989), a defendant's offer to submit to a polygraph examination as evidence of consciousness of innocence is not admissible. Such an offer is a self-serving act undertaken with no possibility of any risk. If the offer is accepted and the test given, the results cannot be used in evidence whether favorable or unfavorable. In these circumstances, the sincerity of the offer can easily be feigned, making any inference of innocence wholly unreliable. See Ramaker v. State, 345 Ark. 225, 234 (2001); State v. Chang, 46 Haw. 22, 33 (1962), overruled on other grounds by State v. Okumura, 78 Haw. 383, 408 (1995); Commonwealth v. Saunders, 386 Pa. 149, 156-157 (1956); State v. Rowe, 77 Wash. 2d 955, 958 (1970).

As to the second challenged evidentiary ruling, the prosecutor sought to establish that the motive for the murder was either "money or sex." The judge permitted the defendant's girl friend to testify that the day before the murder the defendant was sexually frustrated because of her unwillingness to bring him to orgasm. The judge noted that she did not think the evidence was "particularly prejudicial." The evidence should not have been admitted. The defendant's interrupted but consensual sexual relations with his girl friend the day before the murder was too remote to have any rational bearing on his state of mind when he killed the victim. Cf. Commonwealth v. Scott, 408 Mass. 811, 817-820 (1990) (evidence of three prior encounters with strangers admissible to prove sexual frustration as motive in murder of fourth stranger). The Commonwealth's argument that the evidence was necessary to clarify for the jury the meaning of the statement Camacho overheard the defendant making to the victim, "[G]ive me what I want and I won't hurt you," misses the point. There was evidence properly admitted that the defendant thought the victim sexually provocative. Whether the defendant killed the victim because he was angry that she had not repaid him the money he said was owed to him, or because she refused to engage in sexual intercourse with him, the jury had before them evidence that the defendant was in the apartment at the time of the critical events, and that the victim was refusing to provide him with something. Although the challenged evidence should not have been admitted, this ruling was nonprejudicial. We are confident, in light of all the evidence presented at trial, that the "judgment was not substantially swayed by the error." Commonwealth v. Flebotte, 417 Mass. 348, 353 (1994), quoting Commonwealth v. Peruzzi, 15 Mass. App. Ct. 437, 445 (1983).

3. Witness outburst at trial. While the victim's sister was testifying, the prosecutor asked her to authenticate photographs that had been taken at the crime scene depicting the victim's body. On seeing the photographs, the witness became emotional,⁴ and the judge interrupted the trial. Defense counsel then stipulated to the authenticity of the photographs. The judge recalled the jury and immediately gave a forceful curative instruction. Defense counsel moved for a mistrial, which the judge denied. The defendant claims that, in light of the...