Commonwealth v. Sparks

• Decision Date: 09 March 2001
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. JERMAINE SPARKS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

433 Mass. 654

746 NE 2d 133

COMMONWEALTH v. JERMAINE SPARKS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

March 9, 2001.

April 6, 2001.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, SPINA, & COWIN, JJ.

Joseph A. Hanofee for the defendant.

James C. Orenstein, Assistant District Attorney (Jane Davidson Montori, Assistant District Attorney, with him) for the Commonwealth.

GREANEY, J.

A jury in the Superior Court convicted the defendant on two indictments charging murder, finding in each case that he had acted with deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty, and was guilty of felony-murder (with armed robbery as the predicate felony). Represented by new counsel on appeal, the defendant argues error in (1) the denial of his motion to suppress his statements to the police and photographs taken by them of his athletic shoes; (2) the admission of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence by an expert witness; and (3) the denial of his motion for a new trial. We conclude that there is no error and no basis for granting relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.

It is not necessary to set forth in detail the findings that the jury could have made based on the Commonwealth's evidence.¹ It is sufficient to provide the following outline. On the night of the murders, the defendant, a huge man (seven feet tall, weighing approximately 300 pounds, and having a size sixteen EEE foot), was refused a loan of money by a coworker at the Springfield restaurant where he worked with the landlord of the victims, Hope Parrish and her thirteen month old daughter. After failing to obtain the loan, the defendant went to Hope's apartment door; he was seen on the common porch of the house by Hope's next door neighbor. After the defendant entered her apartment, he attacked Hope, who had attempted to defend herself and her daughter with a knife and nail file. Hope cut the defendant's hand in the struggle. Hope also may have tried to make a telephone call for help, but the defendant ripped the telephone from the wall. The defendant subdued Hope, killing her by stabbing her thirty-six times over her body with such force that he bent two knife blades and fractured her skull. The defendant murdered Hope's daughter by slashing her throat with a knife and fracturing her skull with a metal pot. The defendant took Hope's car keys, wallet, and money. He used the keys to steal Hope's automobile. After the murders, the defendant met his girl friend and spent some of Hope's money to buy crack cocaine. She provided incriminating testimony against him. Bloodstains consistent with the defendant's blood and his bloody palm print were found in Hope's apartment. There was also evidence of footprints left in the apartment by the defendant's size sixteen athletic shoes that had a distinctive pattern on their soles.

1. We reject the defendant's argument that the motion judge improperly denied his motion to suppress his oral and written statements to the police.² The defendant claims that he was in custody when questioned, and, therefore, the police were required to provide him with Miranda warnings.

The judge held an evidentiary hearing on the motion to suppress, and he entered a memorandum of decision in which he made findings of fact and conclusions of law. The judge's findings of fact are supported by the evidence that he found credible, and we accept them. See Commonwealth v. Robinson, 399 Mass. 209, 215 (1987), quoting Commonwealth v. Moon, 380 Mass. 751, 756 (1980). The judge found that the defendant went voluntarily to the police station. When he was questioned there, the defendant was not restrained in any way, and there was no probable cause to arrest him. At the time of the interview, the defendant was not the focus of the investigation; the police were still investigating the killings and were talking to numerous people (the defendant among them) who may have had some contact with Hope. The interview was relaxed and amicable, not confrontational, and the defendant willingly answered questions asked of him. (The judge found that "[t]he questioning was influenced in its contours by the defendant and his answers.") The defendant read and signed his written statement, which contained no confession. When the interview was completed, the police offered the defendant a ride back to work. The defendant declined the offer, and he was allowed to leave the police station.

The judge applied the factors set forth in Commonwealth v. Bryant, 390 Mass. 729, 737 (1984),³ for determining whether a police interview of a person or suspect takes place in custodial circumstances requiring the administering of Miranda warnings. The judge correctly concluded that the questioning of the defendant did not take place in a coercive environment, that is, an environment where the police have so restricted the freedom of the person interviewed as to render him "in custody." Rather, as the judge properly found on the evidence, the defendant's interview was part of an ongoing investigation in which the police were still attempting to identify the murderer. Consistent with its investigatory purpose, the interview was not confrontational. Importantly, the defendant was free to leave the police station at any time. The judge properly disregarded the fact that police suspicion about the defendant was heightened during the interview because he was a "tall and stocky" black male (this general description was furnished by the neighbor who had seen such a man on the night of the murders on the porch of the house where the victims lived), who had large feet and cuts on his hands. See Commonwealth v. Morse, 427 Mass. 117, 127 (1998). Nor was it significant in the circumstances, as the judge concluded, that after the interview ended, the police placed the defendant under surveillance. In addition, the fact that the interview took place at a police station did not render it custodial, particularly where the defendant accompanied the police to the police station on his own volition and left the station after the interview ended. See Commonwealth v. Gil, 393 Mass. 204, 212 (1984). Because, from the perspective of a reasonable person in the defendant's position, there was no restraint on the defendant's freedom of movement of the degree associated with formal arrest, Miranda rights were unnecessary. The defendant's motion to suppress his statements was correctly denied. See Commonwealth v. Larkin, 429 Mass. 426, 432-436 (1999); Commonwealth v. Morse, supra at 122-127; Commonwealth v. Jung, 420 Mass. 675, 687-689 (1995).

2. During the interview, the police asked the defendant whether they could look at the soles of his athletic shoes. The defendant responded by lifting his feet so the police could view the bottoms of the shoes. A police photographer was brought in to photograph the shoes. The photographer suggested that the shoes should be removed so he could more easily obtain photographs. The defendant agreed to do so and took his shoes off, and, when the photographer finished, the shoes were returned to the defendant. The defendant argues that the shoes were "seized" by the police without his consent and that the photographs, therefore, were unconstitutionally obtained. The defendant argues that all evidence derived from the photographs should have been suppressed.

The judge found that the police had seen footprints in the victims' apartment and were collecting photographs of the bottoms of numerous shoes to compare with those footprints. The judge also found, and concluded, that taking photographs "of the sole[s] of [the defendant's] shoes [was] agreed to [by the defendant and] was not the result of any coerced or involuntary action [on the defendant's part]. He freely and openly took off his shoes so they could be photographed." The judge's findings and conclusions are supported by the evidence. The police examination of the soles of the defendant's athletic shoes did not constitute a search, see Commonwealth v. Billings, 42 Mass. App. Ct. 261, 264-266 (1997), and, because the defendant consented to removing his shoes so they could be photographed, there was no illegal seizure. The photographs were part of the interview process which, as we have concluded, violated no constitutional rule. This aspect of the defendant's motion to suppress was properly denied by the motion judge.

3. The Commonwealth introduced the expert testimony of Dr. Robin Cotton, the laboratory director of Cellmark Diagnostics Laboratories (Cellmark), a recognized forensic laboratory located in Germantown, Maryland. Dr. Cotton testified about Cellmark's DNA testing (by means of the polymerase chain reaction [PCR] method) of DNA obtained from bloodstains found in the victims' apartment and the statistical frequencies of matches between the DNA derived from the...