Commonwealth v. Montoya
| Decision Date | 14 March 2013 |
| Docket Number | SJC–11086. |
| Citation | 464 Mass. 566,984 N.E.2d 793 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Edwin MONTOYA. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Background: Defendant was convicted in the Superior Court Department, Middlesex County, Christopher J. Muse, Dennis J. Curran, JJ., on drug-related charges that included trafficking in cocaine over 28 grams. Defendant appealed. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court.
Holdings: The Supreme Judicial Court, Duffly, J., held that:
(1) admission of the drug analysts' certificates of analysis, without the testimony of the two analysts who prepared and signed them, violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment right;
(2) admission of certificates was not harmless;
(3) police officers had probable cause to arrest defendant; and
(4) defendant's statements to police regarding hidden compartment in car and drugs found in car were voluntary.
Vacated and remanded for new trial.
Paul C. Brennan, Winchester, for the defendant.
Paul Trifiletti, Assistant District Attorney (Kevin J. Curtin, Assistant District Attorney, with him) for the Commonwealth.
Present: IRELAND, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, GANTS, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.
During the defendant's trial in the Superior Court on drug-related charges that included trafficking in cocaine over twenty-eight grams, certificates of chemical analysis establishing the weight and identity of the substance alleged to have been in the defendant's possession (drug certificates) were erroneously admitted in evidence. At issue in this case is whether the improper admission of those drug certificates was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, where jurors had the opportunity to handle and examine the bags of powder cocaine in evidence. Because we conclude that unaided jurors would not have been able to determine the weight of such small quantities with the requisite degree of precision, and that the evidence otherwise was not overwhelming, the error in admission of the drug certificates was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, the defendant's convictions must be vacated.
Background. The defendant was indicted on charges of distribution of cocaine, G.L. c. 94C, § 32A (c ); a drug violation within a school zone, G.L. c. 94C, § 32J; trafficking in cocaine over twenty-eight grams and less than one hundred grams, G.L. c. 94C, § 32E (b ); and conspiracy to violate the drug laws, G.L. c. 94C, § 40. The charges stemmed from the defendant's arrest after State troopers, conducting surveillance in the parking lot of a grocery store, observed the defendant hand something through the window of his vehicle to the driver of a pickup truck. One trooper seized a single, small bag of suspected cocaine from the individual in the truck; another trooper conducted a search of the automobile that the defendant had been driving, and found twenty small bags of suspected cocaine.
The defendant moved to suppress the items found in the vehicle he was driving as well as his postarrest statements to police. A Superior Court judge denied the motion, concluding that the police stop and arrest of the defendant were supported by probable cause and that the defendant's statements to police had been made voluntarily and intelligently.
At trial, the Commonwealth introduced two drug certificates from the State police drug laboratory. These certificates were admitted in part to establish that the bag recovered from the buyer contained 2.68 grams of cocaine and that the bags recovered from the defendant's vehicle contained a total of 39.74 grams of cocaine. Neither of the chemical analysts who prepared the drug certificates testified. The defendant did not object to the admission. The Commonwealth dismissed the indictment for conspiracy before the case went to the jury. The defendant was convicted on the other three indictments.
The defendant appealed from the denial of his motion to suppress and from his convictions. Five months before his appeal was docketed in the Appeals Court, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Melendez–Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305, 129 S.Ct. 2527, 174 L.Ed.2d 314 (2009)(Melendez–Diaz ), in which the Court overturned earlier Massachusetts case law and held that a drug analyst's certificate is testimonial and cannot be admitted at trial unless a defendant has the opportunity to cross-examine the person who conducted the analysis on which the certificate was based. The defendant thereafter filed a motion for a new trial in the Superior Court, in which he argued that the admission of the drug certificates violated his right to confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and that his trial counsel was ineffective for not having objected to their admission.1 The judge denied the motion, concluding that admission of the drug certificates was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant's appeal from that denial was consolidated with his direct appeal, and we transferred the case to this court on our own motion.
Before us, the defendant raises four claims of error. He contends that (1) the admission of drug certificates absent testimony of the analysts who performed the tests and certified the results violated his right under the Sixth Amendment to confront the witnesses against him; (2) the judge erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence seized from his vehicle because police did not have probable cause to arrest him; (3) his statements to police should have been suppressed because they were not voluntary; and (4) his trial counsel was ineffective.
Facts. The jury could have found the following. At approximately 1 p.m. on August 8, 2006, State troopers Bradford Porter and Jeffrey Saunders were conducting surveillance in the parking lot of a grocery store in the city of Everett. Police frequently had observed narcotics sales in that area. The two troopers were in separate, unmarked vehicles. Porter saw a white Ford pickup truck and a brown Toyota sedan parked with the drivers' windows facing one another and the drivers “hanging out of the windows and engaged in some form of conversation.” Saunders observed the driver of the Toyota pass something to the driver of the pickup truck. He radioed this information to Porter and followed the Toyota as it left the parking lot.
Porter approached the pickup truck and saw the driver heating a substance on a spoon and inhaling the smoke through a glass tube. Porter radioed Saunders, at which point Saunders activated his lights, stopped the Toyota, and subsequently arrested the defendant. During the arrest, Saunders seized $1,380 in cash from the defendant's pants pocket. The defendant was the only occupant of the Toyota, which was towed to the State police barracks. The defendant was placed in a holding cell at the State police barracks, and was given Miranda warnings.
A drug detection canine was brought in and “got all excited” while sniffing the exterior of the Toyota's front passenger door, an indication that there were narcotics inside. The trooper who handled the canine testified that narcotics detection canines are trained to detect the odors of “marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.”
Lieutenant Dennis L. Brooks of the State police told the defendant that a narcotics canine had alerted to the scent of narcotics in the vehicle, and that police suspected it contained a “hide.” According to Brooks, “I asked him if he would have any information because the car wasn't registered to him, and I don't like to destroy people's property based on an alert from the dog if there's a reason—if I could find the hide.” The defendant informed Brooks that there was an electronically activated “hide” in the vehicle and described the series of steps required to open it. The troopers discovered twenty plastic bags containing what appeared to be cocaine in the “hide” under the front passenger seat. Brooks testified that the defendant told police he recently had begun selling cocaine because he had been injured in a car accident, was not working, and had credit card debts.
Detective James Hyde of the Somerville police department, who testified as an expert in the field of narcotics investigation, stated that cocaine is often sold as an “eight ball,” that is, one-eighth of an ounce (approximately 3.5 grams). Hyde examined the small bag recovered from the buyer and the bags recovered from the defendant's vehicle and opined that they appeared to contain powder cocaine. He also examined the drug certificate concerning the substance recovered from the buyer and gave his opinion that 2.68 grams was a “funny weight,” and the bag had likely been an “eight ball” at sale.
The Commonwealth introduced two certificates prepared by the State police drug laboratory. The analysts who prepared the drug certificates did not testify, and nothing in the record indicates that defense counsel had had any prior opportunity to cross-examine them. According to the drug certificates, the powder in the bag recovered from the buyer and the powder in the bags recovered from the “hide” each was thirty per cent pure cocaine, diluted with an infant laxative. Hyde testified that infant laxative is frequently used to dilute pure cocaine, and thirty per cent purity is not unusual for drugs sold at street level.2 He said that, in 2006, the price of an “eight ball” of powder cocaine in Everett was between $150 and $180.
The defendant, who testified in his own defense, said that a person he had met at a party a month earlier, and whom he could identify only as “Andres,” had lent him an automobile so that he could go to a shopping mall to buy an engagement ring for his girl friend.3 Andres asked the defendant to stop at a grocery store on the way to the mall to pick up money from a man in a white pickup truck. The defendant had seen Andres operate the “hide” previously, but did not know there...
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