Commonwealth v. Williams
| Citation | 160 N.E.3d 624,486 Mass. 646 |
| Decision Date | 20 January 2021 |
| Docket Number | SJC-12378 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Jessie WILLIAMS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Jeffrey L. Baler for the defendant.
Jamie Michael Charles, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Present: Lenk, Gaziano, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.1
On July 3, 2013, Joseph Puopolo was shot and killed and Mario Fiume was shot and seriously injured. A jury convicted the defendant, Jessie Williams, of murder in the first degree on a theory of felony-murder for the killing of Puopolo, with the predicate offense being armed robbery and armed assault in a dwelling. The defendant also was convicted of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury to Fiume and possession of a firearm. On appeal, the defendant argues that (1) the motion judged erred in denying his motion to suppress statements; (2) the trial judge erred in declining to conduct a voir dire of an allegedly sleeping juror and subsequently allowing that juror to deliberate; and (3) the trial judge abused his discretion in excusing a juror who professed an inability to begin deliberations anew after the discharge of another juror. We conclude that the motion judge properly denied the defendant's motion to suppress where the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his Miranda rights multiple times and did not unambiguously invoke his right to counsel. We further conclude that the juror was dismissed for reasons not entirely personal to him and that the juror's dismissal was prejudicial, and we therefore vacate the judgments entered against the defendant. Accordingly, we do not reach the sleeping juror issue, as it is unlikely to arise on retrial.
1. Background. We summarize the facts that the jury could have found, reserving pertinent facts for the discussion of the defendant's arguments. In addition, we reserve the facts that the motion judge found, as well as the facts we found from our own review of the defendant's recorded interview, for the discussion of the defendant's motion to suppress.
a. The murder. On the evening of July 2, 2013, the defendant's cousin, Eugene Tate, had arranged to buy marijuana from dealer Mario Fiume. Tate went to Fiume's home to make the purchase, but the deal did not occur. Later that night, Tate called Steven Piro, a friend of Fiume's and often the middleman in his marijuana sales, and told Piro that he wished to complete the sale. Piro, accompanied by another associate, George Tecci, picked up Tate and the defendant at a gasoline station near Fiume's house. Piro drove the men to Fiume's house in his car.
On arrival at Fiume's house, the defendant entered the garage, where Fiume conducted his drug sales, with Piro. Fiume was present with his friend Joseph Puopolo.
After examining the marijuana, the defendant told Fiume that Tate, whom he referred to as his cousin, also would like to see the marijuana before they purchased it. Piro brought Tate and Tecci into the garage from the car; the defendant then left the garage and reentered with money in hand. Fiume, who also was holding money, told the defendant to pay or leave. The defendant then asked Tate if they should "do it," and both men brandished guns. The defendant pointed his gun at Fiume and demanded that he turn over the money and marijuana.
After Fiume attempted to strike the defendant, the defendant forced him into a corner of the garage and shot him at close range. At around the same time that the defendant shot Fiume, Tate shot Puopolo. The defendant and Tate fled on foot with the marijuana. Puopolo went upstairs to get help, where he collapsed. When police arrived, Puopolo had no detectable pulse.
In the days following the murder, police recovered surveillance video from the gasoline station where Piro and Tecci had picked up the defendant and Tate before driving them to Fiume's house. The video footage showed the defendant getting into Piro's car. A detective familiar with the defendant identified him in the video recording. Additionally, police recovered surveillance video from outside Fiume's home. The video footage captured the defendant and Tate arriving at Fiume's home in Piro's car at around midnight and fleeing on foot shortly after.
Both the defendant's and Tate's fingerprints were found on separate interior door handles of Piro's car, which was left at Fiume's house after the murder. Additionally, a cigarette butt with the defendant' deoxyribonucleic acid on it was recovered from Fiume's driveway. The defendant was arrested in the East Boston section of Boston on July 7, taken to the State police barracks at Logan International Airport, and later transported to the Stoneham police department.
b. The interrogation. The defendant was interviewed at the Stoneham police station. Before the start of the interview, police read the defendant a Miranda form and video recording consent form. After the defendant agreed to the videorecorded interview, police again advised him of his Miranda rights, this time on video, and the defendant signed and initialed the Miranda form, indicating that he understood. The defendant agreed to speak with police.
Police then began interrogating the defendant. Initially, the defendant denied having any involvement in the murder. Eventually, the defendant admitted to being in the car with Tate. The defendant told police that he and Tate had planned to steal the drugs that night but it did not go as intended. Finally, he admitted to shooting Fiume during the course of the robbery.
c. Jury deliberations. After one day of deliberations, a juror was excused for health reasons. An alternate juror was selected randomly, and the jurors began deliberations anew. The next day, another juror was absent due to difficulty commuting to court in a snowstorm. Over the defendant's objection, the trial judge excused that juror, and a second alternate juror was selected. The judge instructed the jury, for the second time in two days, "to set aside and disregard all your past deliberations and to begin deliberations anew." The defendant moved for a mistrial, arguing that, during those instructions, "[a]t least four [jurors] put their heads down, shook their heads, put their hands to their foreheads, shaking their heads in a ‘no’ fashion." The defendant argued that their frustrations would affect their ability to be fair. The judge denied the motion.
After the jurors began deliberations again, juror no. 11 submitted to the trial judge a note stating:
The defendant argued that the sentiments expressed in the note were not unique to this particular juror, and that the jury could not begin anew without bias. Therefore, he argued, there was manifest necessity for a mistrial; the prosecutor said that he did not "disagree completely."
The trial judge inquired of the juror in the presence of both parties. The juror said, He also indicated that he could not "fully look at everything" and make his decision again. The judge reminded the juror that he had taken an oath, but the juror insisted that he could not carry it out because he had "already done it and [he did not] want to go in there and talk to anyone." The judge repeatedly pressed the juror as to why he could not carry out his oath; the juror repeatedly said that he could not start over and he had already "made up [his] decision." The judge informed the juror that he did not have to "completely erase everything from [his] mind," but the juror continued to stress his inability to deliberate anew.
The following colloquy occurred between the juror and the trial judge:
The defendant then reiterated his motion for a mistrial. The defendant argued that the juror could not remain on the jury due to lack of impartiality, but the juror also had expressed that he held a minority view among the jurors and so could not be excused from the jury. The trial judge denied the motion, and the defendant subsequently requested that the juror...
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