Commonwealth v. Powell

• Citation: 10 N.E.3d 628,468 Mass. 272
• Decision Date: 06 June 2014
• Docket Number: SJC–11362.
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Errol POWELL.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

468 Mass. 272

10 N.E.3d 628

COMMONWEALTH

v.Errol POWELL.¹

SJC–11362.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,

Bristol.

Argued Feb. 6, 2014.

Decided June 6, 2014.

Roger L. Michel, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Richard B. Klibaner for the defendant.

Present: IRELAND, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, GANTS, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.

CORDY, J.

The defendant in this case has been charged with murder in the first degree and other crimes arising out of the shooting of Jonathan Nieves, who was mistaken for a member of a rival gang, on or about February 26, 2010. The defendant was interrogated by police following his arrest and after being held for approximately nine hours in the Fall River police station while awaiting his initial appearance in the local District Court. During that interrogation, he made several inculpatory statements. Those statements were subsequently suppressed as violative of the rule we established in Commonwealth v. Rosario, 422 Mass. 48, 56, 661 N.E.2d 71 (1996), which renders inadmissible custodial statements made more than six hours after arrest and before being brought to court for arraignment.² The Commonwealth asks us to revisit the Rosario rule. Because we are of the view that the rule continues to serve as an important and practical protection of the constitutional and common-law rights of persons arrested for violations of the criminal laws, we decline to do so. Accordingly, we affirm the allowance of the defendant's motion to suppress.³

Background. We consider the facts as set forth in the motion judge's findings after an evidentiary hearing, at which four police officers testified, supplemented by uncontroverted facts in the record that were implicitly credited by the motion judge. See Commonwealth v. Isaiah I., 448 Mass. 334, 337, 861 N.E.2d 404 (2007), S.C.,450 Mass. 818, 882 N.E.2d 328 (2008).

On February, 26, 2010, or in the early morning hours of the following day, Jonathan Nieves was shot to death in his motor vehicle when he was mistaken for a gang member, “PZ,” who was suspected of killing a member of the Mafiosa Street gang, to which the defendant belonged. That night, the defendant was informed by a female friend that PZ was at a night club in Fall River. The friend, who was accompanied by the defendant's girl friend, had mistaken Nieves for PZ. The two women followed Nieves in a motor vehicle when he drove away from the night club and kept the defendant, who was driving a motor vehicle owned by his neighbor, apprised of his location. A short time later, the women heard shots in the area where Nieves had parked. The defendant returned his neighbor's motor vehicle sometime after 2:30 a.m. on February 27.

After obtaining more information about what had occurred that evening, the police arrested the defendant at 1:30 p.m. on June 14, 2010, on the charge of larceny of the neighbor's motor vehicle.⁴ Although the police apparently had probable cause to arrest the defendant for murder, they did not obtain an arrest warrant for that charge, because they had not yet been authorized to do so by the district attorney. The defendant was placed in a cell at the police station at approximately 2:45 p.m. and was held there until 11:45 p.m., when a State trooper went to retrieve him for an interview and found him partially asleep. The State trooper and a Fall River police officer thereafter interviewed the defendant for two hours. The defendant was alert and cooperative but yawned throughout the interview. After providing a Miranda waiver at the beginning of the interview, the defendant began to talk about the motor vehicle larceny charge. The officers indicated that they were interested in discussing the murder of Nieves and that they believed that the defendant was the perpetrator. During the course of the interrogation that followed, the defendant admitted to shooting Nieves and made further inculpatory statements. Two months later, the defendant was indicted on charges of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, unlawful possession of a firearm, armed assault with intent to murder, and murder in the first degree.

The defendant thereafter moved to suppress the statements he made during the interview, alleging that the Miranda warnings given to him were defective, and that he had not promptly been brought before the court as required by Mass. R.Crim. P. 7(a)(1), as appearing in 461 Mass. 1501 (2012), such that the Rosario rule applied to exclude his statements. A Superior Court judge granted the defendant's motion on the ground that the Rosario rule applied where the defendant was not interrogated within six hours of his arrest, no exception applied to permit the delay, and the defendant had not signed a waiver of his right to be brought promptly into court. A single justice of this court allowedthe Commonwealth's application for leave to proceed with an interlocutory appeal to this court.

Discussion. The Commonwealth makes two primary arguments in support of its assertion that the motion judge's ruling must be reversed. First, it argues that the Rosario rule governing the admissibility of inculpatory statements made prior to arraignment is no longer an appropriate mechanism for such determinations, and that this court should instead adopt the totality of the circumstances test employed by the majority of States. Second, the Commonwealth asserts that, even if the rule remains in place, the rule does not bar the admission of the defendant's statements here because the six-hour clock begins anew with each criminal charge, and it had only begun to run as to the motor vehicle larceny offense and not the murder-related offenses of which he was not then charged. The Commonwealth also contends that the Rosario rule does not bar admission because the emergency exception to the rule should apply.

1. Propriety of Rosario safe harbor rule.⁵ Police are required to bring an arrestee before a court as soon as is reasonably possible. See Mass. R.Crim. P. 7(a)(1). In Rosario, 422 Mass. at 56, 661 N.E.2d 71, this court introduced a bright-line rule that defines reasonable delay for the purposes of admissibility of custodial statements made while awaiting arraignment in court. The Rosario rule provides that “[a]n otherwise admissible statement is not to be excluded on the ground of unreasonable delay in arraignment, if the statement is made within six hours of the arrest (day or night), or if (at any time) the defendant made an informed and voluntary written or recorded waiver of his right to be arraigned without unreasonable delay.” ⁶Id. Statements made after the six-hour period following arrest are inadmissible, unless the defendant has waived the right to be promptly brought before the court or, in very rare circumstances, if an exception applies. Id. at 56–57, 661 N.E.2d 71.

The Commonwealth asks us to depart from this rule because it is inflexible and does not advance the interests of the justice system or serve the values it was intended to promote. In addition, the Commonwealth contends that the authorities the court relied on in Rosario no longer support the utility of the rule, that our subsequent decisions applying Rosario suggest that we have already departed from the bright-line rule, and that a totality of the circumstances test would provide a more fitting case-by-case analysis. The defendant asserts that Rosario continues to serve its purposes of preventing unlawfuldetention and improper police pressure to elicit confessions. We agree with the defendant that there is no reason to depart from the Rosario rule, particularly on the facts of this case.

The Rosario rule is rooted in the rule of prompt presentment, Mass. R.Crim. P. 7(a)(1), which provides that “[a] defendant who has been arrested and is not released shall be brought for arraignment before a court if then in session, and if not, at its next session.” See Commonwealth v. Butler, 423 Mass. 517, 523, 668 N.E.2d 832 (1996). Although the right to prompt presentment is not itself a constitutional one, it serves to protect several constitutional rights afforded to criminal defendants, or at a minimum to inform them of these rights, including the rights to counsel, to be informed of the charges by a member of the judiciary, to reasonable bail, and not to be detained unlawfully. See Commonwealth v. Fortunato, 466 Mass. 500, 505 & n. 7, 506, 996 N.E.2d 457 (2013); Butler, supra. See also Corley v. United States, 556 U.S. 303, 320, 129 S.Ct. 1558, 173 L.Ed.2d 443 (2009); Commonwealth v. Duncan, 514 Pa. 395, 402–403, 525 A.2d 1177 (1987), overruled by Commonwealth v. Perez, 577 Pa. 360, 845 A.2d 779 (2004).

Given the rights that attach when a defendant is brought before the court, there is a very real concern that police will delay in presenting an arrestee for arraignment in order to obtain a confession or other inculpatory statements from the arrestee before he or she receives representation. See Commonwealth v. Morganti, 455 Mass. 388, 399–400, 917 N.E.2d 191 (2009), S.C.,467 Mass. 96, 4 N.E.3d 241 (2014). Delays in presentment thus create both “opportunity and incentive for application of improper police pressure.” Rosario, 422 Mass. at 51, 661 N.E.2d 71. In light of these concerns, we have historically considered delay in presentment in relation to the admissibility of statements made during prearraignment interrogations. See Commonwealth v. Martinez, 458 Mass. 684, 694, 940 N.E.2d 422 (2011). Other jurisdictions have similarly looked to their own prompt presentment requirements and implemented rules or standards intended “to discourage the obtaining of incriminatory information through coercive means,” see Commonwealth v. Jenkins, 500 Pa. 144, 150, 454 A.2d 1004 (1982), and “to ensure that the rights to which an accused is entitled at preliminary arraignment are afforded without unnecessary delay.” Duncan, 514 Pa. at 404, 525 A.2d 1177, quoting Commonwealth v. Davenport, 471 Pa. 278, 284, ...