Commonwealth v. Rice
| Citation | 805 NE 2d 26,441 Mass. 291 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. JORDAN MARTEL RICE. |
| Decision Date | 09 January 2004 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, & CORDY, JJ.
Mary E. Lee, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Donald A. Harwood for the defendant.
The defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on a theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty. He was also convicted of arson. He filed a motion for a new trial alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. The motion was denied without a hearing. On appeal the defendant alleges error in (1) the denial of his motion to suppress evidence; (2) the denial of trial counsel's motion to withdraw; (3) the admission of certain expert testimony; (4) the prosecutor's summation; (5) the judge's instruction on extreme atrocity or cruelty; and (6) the denial of his motion for a new trial. The defendant also asks us to exercise our power under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to reverse the murder conviction and dismiss the indictment, or remand for a new trial. We affirm the convictions and decline to exercise our power under § 33E.
1. Background. On September 22, 1995, the victim attended a wedding reception with friends. She arrived at approximately 7:30 P.M. and left at approximately 10:30 P.M. The defendant also attended the reception, staying until about 1 or 1:30 A.M. on September 23.
The victim telephoned her daughter at 1 A.M. on September 23, and there was nothing unusual about her tone of voice. She left a voicemail message for her boy friend at 1:15 A.M., which was also unremarkable. At 4:40 A.M. on September 23, neighbors in the victim's Brockton apartment complex awoke to the smell of smoke and telephoned the Brockton fire department. Fire fighters arrived within minutes and went to the victim's apartment, which was the apparent source of the fire. The front door was ajar. They entered and went to the bedroom. The victim's naked and lifeless body lay on the bed, which was in flames. A smoke detector had been dismantled and placed under the bed. An arson investigator determined that attempts had been made to burn a blood-soaked couch in the living room, but were unsuccessful because the couch was made of flame retardant material. The bed had been set afire by igniting a cardboard box and papers that had been placed under the foot of the bed.
A forensic pathologist determined that the victim had eleven stab wounds and four incised wounds to her body consistent with a single edged knife blade at least two inches long. A wound to her right upper chest corresponded with a punctured blood vessel that supplied blood to the right lung, causing her to bleed to death within minutes. The pathologist estimated the time of death at between approximately midnight and 4 A.M. on September 23, 1995, and that the absence of carbon monoxide in her blood and soot in her lungs suggested that she was dead when the fire started. The presence of full sperm cells in her vagina indicated that she had had sexual intercourse within eighteen to twenty-four hours of the autopsy, which had begun at 1 P.M. on September 23. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing established that the defendant was the source of the sperm. There was no other physical evidence connecting the defendant to the victim's apartment.
When the defendant was interviewed by police on January 5, 1996, he admitted knowing the victim and where she lived (they lived in the same apartment complex), but denied ever having sexual intercourse with her. He acknowledged that he was at the wedding reception on September 22, 1995, but said he was alone and left at about 1 A.M. He then went directly home where he stayed for the night.
Several friends and acquaintances of the defendant testified about statements he made. Alan Paine testified that in September, 1995, shortly after the victim was killed, he telephoned the defendant and asked if he was aware of her death. The defendant replied in the negative. When Paine asked if he killed her, the defendant replied that he "can't talk about that," and later told Paine he thought his telephone was tapped. In January or February, 1996, the defendant told Paine, in the presence of Paine's girl friend, that the police took his fingerprints. He then asked Paine how long it would take the police to obtain the results of a fingerprint analysis, and if burning something would destroy prints. In February, 1996, the defendant told Paine and Jamie Baker that he had had a girl friend who "disrespected him, and he had gotten rid of her, and had put plenty of holes in her, and burned her." In March, 1996, the defendant told Paine that he "expected to be arrested for murder" and that the police were "trying to set [him] up like O.J. Simpson."
On January 28, 1996, at a birthday party for Joanne Maldonado's daughter, the defendant was being teased by some children about "beating up his girl friend." Maldonado asked him about it and the defendant said The defendant then stormed out of the house. Teresa Baker, Maldonado's daughter, overheard the conversation.
The defendant testified at trial that he had had consensual intercourse with the victim at approximately 4 P.M. on September 22, 1995, and had begun an intimate relationship with her about one month before. He said he lied to the police about not having sexual relations with her because he was afraid. He denied making incriminating statements to Alan Paine and the others, and he denied killing the victim.
2. Motion to suppress. The defendant filed a motion to suppress certain items, including his bed sheets, his inmate uniform, and his T-shirt, that were seized in August, 1996, by correction officers at the Suffolk County house of correction at South Bay, where the defendant was in custody on an unrelated charge. It is not disputed that the items were seized without a search warrant, without probable cause, and without the defendant's consent. The items were seized at the request of State police for DNA testing. The defendant also sought suppression of the fruits of the items seized, including DNA test results. After a hearing, a judge in the Superior Court denied the motion on the ground that the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the items seized.
The judge found, with record support, that the items in question were obtained in the ordinary course of collecting standard issue bed sheets and inmate uniforms for periodic laundering. The T-shirt was obtained in the ordinary course of exchanging new T-shirts and underwear for worn out items. In each instance, the items were obtained after the defendant passed them through a space in his cell door created for such purposes, as is done by all inmates at the South Bay facility. The defendant's items were segregated from those of other inmates and turned over to State police. DNA samples obtained from these items were tested and matched the DNA of the sperm found in the victim's vagina.
The defendant has the initial burden to establish that a search and seizure occurred within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. That is, the defendant must show that he had a subjective expectation of privacy in the place searched or the items seized and that his expectation of privacy was objectively reasonable. See Commonwealth v. D'Onofrio, 396 Mass. 711, 714-715 (1986).
The defendant's reliance on United States v. Cohen, 796 F.2d 20, 24 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 854 (1986), and cert. denied sub nom. Barr v. United States, 479 U.S. 1055 (1987), is misplaced. In that case, the court held that a pretrial detainee retains limited rights under the Fourth Amendment against an investigative search of his prison cell initiated by the prosecution. In a subsequent case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that its Cohen decision was limited to pretrial detainees. See Willis v. Artuz, 301 F.3d 65 (2d Cir. 2002). Here, the defendant did not establish his status as a pretrial detainee,1 but more importantly, he did not establish that the items he sought to suppress were seized during a search of his cell. The judge found that the defendant passed the items through a space in his cell door to a correction officer standing outside the cell.
The defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the items seized. His bed sheets and uniform belonged to the county. They were laundered with similar items used by other inmates and redistributed to inmates randomly. Any rights he might have enjoyed were abandoned when he surrendered them for laundering. Cf. Commonwealth v. Pratt, 407 Mass. 647, 660 (1990). Although he owned the T-shirt, he abandoned any interest he may have had in it when he surrendered it for a replacement. Id. There was no error in the denial of the defendant's motion to suppress.
3. Motion to withdraw as counsel. On August 26, 1998, trial counsel filed a motion to withdraw, alleging in his supporting affidavit an irretrievable breakdown of the attorney-client relationship arising from the defendant's confrontational attitude and refusal to accept his advice. The hearing on the motion, though spread out over two days, was not lengthy. On the second hearing day the defendant asserted that any lack of cooperation was not on his part, but on the part of counsel, who insisted on "put[ting] up the defense he wants . . . [not] the defense that . . . I want." The judge expressed incredulity at the defendant's assertion that counsel failed to communicate with him or show him any paperwork that he had done in the case. Near the conclusion of the hearing the defendant stated,
In a written decision, the...
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