Commonwealth v. Redmond, Jr.

• Decision Date: 18 October 2001
• Docket Number: 00p408
• Citation: 53 Mass. App. Ct. 1
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH vs. ROBERT W. REDMOND, JR. 00-Massachusetts Court of Appeals
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

COMMONWEALTH vs ROBERT W. REDMOND, JR.

00-P-408

Massachusetts Court of Appeals

June 13, 2001

October 18, 2001

County: Suffolk.

Present: Armstrong, C.J., Grasso, & Berry, JJ.

Malicious Injury to Property.Destruction of Property.Possession of Burglarious Instruments.Breaking and Entering.Burglary.Practice, Criminal, Required finding, Instructions to jury, Question by jury.Due Process of Law, Elements of criminal offense.

Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on April 22, 1997.

The cases were tried before Elizabeth B. Donovan, J.

Joseph J. Mazza for the defendant.

Joseph M. Ditkoff, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

GRASSO, J.

A jury found the defendant guilty of wilful and malicious destruction of property over $250 (G. L. c. 266, 127), possession of burglarious instruments (G. L. c. 266, 49), and breaking and entering in the nighttime with the intent to commit a felony (G. L. c. 266, 16).On appeal, he contends that the trial judge erred (1) in denying his motion for a required finding of not guilty on the indictment charging wilful and malicious destruction of property; (2) in instructing the jury on possession of burglarious instruments and responding to a jury question; and (3) in giving a supplemental instruction on reasonable doubt.We affirm the breaking and entering conviction and reverse the convictions for wilful and malicious destruction of property and possession of burglarious instruments.

1. Facts.Looked at in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, seeCommonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 677-678(1979), the pertinent facts are these.Early in the morning of February 3, 1997, in response to an alarm indicating a possible break into an office building, Officer Jose Acosta proceeded to 29 Winter Street in Boston.The rear entrance to the building at that location opened onto Hamilton Place, a dead-end street with recessed doorways and stairs that abutted a construction site secured by a twelve-foot fence.

When he arrived on the scene in his police cruiser, Officer Acosta observed the defendant walking towards the cruiser.Although he was unable to see the doorway to the building at 6 Hamilton Place, Officer Acosta believed that the defendant had exited from that location.After leaving his cruiser, Officer Acosta spoke with the defendant, who said that he was a street sweeper, although he carried no broom.The morning was cold, but the defendant wore only a sweatsuit, not a winter coat.

As conversation continued, Officer Acosta told the defendant that he was responding to an alarm concerning a break-in.The defendant became nervous, perspiring despite the cold.His hands then began to shake uncontrollably.When Officer Acosta asked him to step closer to the cruiser, the defendant fled.Officer Acosta gave chase, in the course of which he observed the defendant reach into his pocket and toss an object, which appeared to be a screwdriver, over the fence of the construction site.¹

Officer Acosta eventually caught up with the defendant, handcuffed him, handed him over to other officers, and quickly returned to 6 Hamilton Place to continue his investigation.There he saw a box holding open the rear door.Stacked just inside the door was approximately $6,000 worth of computer equipment.On the fourth floor, where the alarm had originally sounded, Officer Acosta observed a security alarm ripped from the wall and shattered glass on the landing adjacent to a broken fire escape window.The front door to the office of Jobs for Youth appeared to have been forcibly opened: the lock was damaged, the door frame was gouged, and wood chips were on the floor.Inside the office, a second door, leading into a computer room, appeared kicked in and bore other indicia of forcible entry, with gouge marks on the frame, a bent deadbolt lock, and more wood chips on the floor.

Following discovery of the break-in, the police arrested the defendant.During booking, the police found two flashlights, a key chain, and a small folding pocket knife on his person.These were introduced in evidence.

2.Evidence on malicious destruction of property.Wilful and malicious destruction of property is a crime requiring proof that the defendant's actions were both "wilful" and "malicious."²SeeCommonwealth v. Armand, 411 Mass. 167, 170(1991)."The terms wilful and malicious are not used redundantly.They convey different meanings within the context of criminal destruction of property."Commonwealth v. Peruzzi, 15 Mass. App. Ct. 437, 443(1983), quoting fromNolan, Criminal Law 427, at 259(1976).While, in most crimes, the wilful doing of an unlawful act suffices to prove malice, under G. L. c. 266, 127, it does not.Commonwealth v. Peruzzi, supra.In addition to the intent to inflict injury to property, the crime requires a state of mind infused with cruelty, hostility or revenge.Seeibid.See alsoCommonwealth v. Schuchardt, 408 Mass. 347, 352(1990).However, malice does not require that the defendant know the identity of the owner of the property damaged."[T]he animus need not have so personalized an object."Commonwealth v. Cimino, 34 Mass. App. Ct. 925, 927(1993).SeeCommonwealth v. Hosman, 257 Mass. 379, 384-385(1926);Commonwealth v. Peruzzi, supra at 442 n.4.

Because the Commonwealth's evidence was insufficient to establish that the defendant's destruction of either door was done with hostility, cruelty or revenge, the judge erred in denying the defendant's motion for a required finding of not guilty.³SeeCommonwealth v. Campbell, 378 Mass. 680, 686(1979);Commonwealth v. Armand, 411 Mass. at 169-170.While the evidence was sufficient to support the conclusion that the defendant's principal goal was theft of the computers, it was insufficient to establish that the destruction of a door was more than a means to that end.The damage was essentially confined to breaking a window, dismantling a security alarm, and forcibly opening two doors, thus allowing access to the goods inside.Although clearly intended, such property damage was nothing more than "the adventitious by-product of a wholly discrete criminal enterprise"(the theft of the computers) and was not "gratuitous, excessive violence purposefully designed to intimidate and overpower,"Commonwealth v. Wynn, 42 Mass. App. Ct. 452, 456(1997), or destructive acts that were by design and hostile to the owner of the property, whoever that may have been.SeeCommonwealth v. McGovern, 397 Mass. 863, 868(1986).The forcible entry into an office will, without doubt, result in some destruction of property, but a messy thief is not necessarily malicious within the meaning of the statute.SeeCommonwealth v. Armand, 411 Mass. at 170-171(damage to steering column and door of automobile was merely ancillary to principal goal of pulling victims out of vehicle in order to beat them).

Here, as in Armand, the evidence tended more to show that the defendant had engaged in wanton destruction of property, a separate violation of G. L. c. 266, 127, for which the defendant was not indicted.SeeCommonwealth v. Schuchardt, 408 Mass. at 351.Moreover, wanton destruction of property is not a lesser included offense of wilful and malicious destruction of property.Id. at 352.SeeCommonwealth v. Cimino, 34 Mass. App. Ct. at 926-927.

3.Instructions on possession of burglarious tools.To convict for possession of burglarious instruments in violation of G. L. c. 266, 49, the Commonwealth must prove that the defendant possessed "an engine, machine, tool or implement adapted and designed for cutting through, forcing or breaking open a building, room, vault, safe or other depository, in order to steal therefrom money or other property, or to commit any other crime, knowing the same to be adapted and designed for the purpose aforesaid, with intent to use or employ or allow the same to be used or employed for such purpose . . ."(emphasis added).

SeeCommonwealth v. Hogan, 41 Mass. App. Ct. 73, 74(1996).

Utilizing the standard Superior Court instructions,⁴ the judge instructed the jury that this indictment required proof of four elements: (1)"the defendant knowingly possessed a tool[,] specifically a screwdriver or an ice pick"; (2)"the tool could reasonably be used to break into the building"; (3)"the defendant knew that the tool or the implement could reasonably [be] used for that purpose"; and (4)"the defendant had the specific intent of stealing the computer equipment from the building."

This standard instruction is incorrect, as it omits the requirement that the defendant must have intended to use the tool to effectuate the breaking and entering, and compounds the error by emphasizing that the intent required must be to steal rather than to use the implement to accomplish the break.SeeCommonwealth v. Krasner, 358 Mass. 727, 729-731, S.C., 360 Mass. 848(1971)(the statute is not limited to a person's possession of burglarious tools with the intent to use them to break and enter in order to commit theft or acquisitive crimes, but also extends to their possession with intent to break and enter in order to commit crimes against the person and trespass).

The instruction should have informed the jury that the Commonwealth needed to prove that the defendant possessed the implement with the intent to use it to break into the building, as opposed to having possessed it with the intent to steal the computer equipment.The distinction is not insignificant.The intent required under G. L. c. 266, 49, is the intent to use the implement to effectuate the break-in.Otherwise, as under the erroneous instruction given here, a felon who carries an ordinary implement such as a pocketknife during an intended breaking and entering, but who intends to accomplish the breaking and entering by entering a closed but unlocked door, seeCommonwealth v. Lewis, 346 Mass. 373, 377(1963), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 933(1964),...