McCambridge v. Hall

• Decision Date: 29 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. Civ.A. 99-10259 WGY.,Civ.A. 99-10259 WGY.
• Parties: John M. McCAMBRIDGE, Petitioner, v. Timothy HALL, Superintendent, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

94 F.Supp.2d 146

John M. McCAMBRIDGE, Petitioner, v. Timothy HALL, Superintendent, Respondent.

No. Civ.A. 99-10259 WGY.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

March 29, 2000.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John M. McCambridge, MCI Norfolk, Norfolk, MA, pro se petitioner.

Cathryn A. Neaves, Attorney General's Office, Boston, MA, for Timothy Hall, Superintendent, M.C.I. Norfolk, respondent.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

YOUNG, Chief Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

John M. McCambridge ("McCambridge") petitions this Court for habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Convicted of manslaughter on January 20, 1995, McCambridge is currently serving a sentence of fifteen to twenty years in state prison. In his petition before this Court (the "Petition"), McCambridge contends that his detention is unlawful because the Massachusetts Superior Court (1) failed to instruct the jury on the defense of necessity, and (2) the prosecutor improperly withheld material exculpatory evidence. See Pet. at ¶ 12. By Memorandum and Order of September 8, 1999, McCambridge v. Hall, 68 F.Supp.2d 1, 4 (D.Mass.1999), this Court previously dismissed a third claim in his Petition relating to allegedly unlawfully seized clothing admitted in evidence at his trial.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In November 1993, a Suffolk County grand jury indicted McCambridge for first degree murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, operating a motor vehicle after license revocation, operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, and operating a motor vehicle to endanger. See Resp't's. Supplemental Answer, Ex. 2. The indictments arose out of a vehicle crash following which McCambridge was found behind the steering wheel of the vehicle and the body of Richard Doyle ("Doyle"), with two gunshot wounds, was found outside the vehicle under the rear wheel on the driver's side.¹ On January 20, 1995, a jury found McCambridge guilty on the lesser included offense of manslaughter, unlawful possession of a firearm, operating under the influence, and operating to endanger. See McCambridge, 44 Mass.App.Ct. at 286, 690 N.E.2d 470. The jury acquitted McCambridge of operating after revocation. See id. On January 25, 1995, McCambridge was sentenced to a term of fifteen to twenty years in state prison for the manslaughter conviction and to a concurrent term of three to five years for the unlawful possession conviction.

McCambridge appealed his convictions to the Massachusetts Appeals Court, raising the following issues for review: (1) "The trial court erroneously denied the defendant's motion to suppress physical evidence by relying on material not produced at the evidentiary hearing,"; (2) "The trial court violated the defendant's state and federal constitutional rights to due process by refusing to charge on necessity,"; and (3) "The trial court erred by not requiring [Doyle's] criminal record to be made part of the record, and the prosecutor may have violated the defendant's state and federal due process rights by not disclosing that record." Resp't's Supplemental Answer, Ex. 1 at 26, 28, 31. In a Supplementary Brief and Appendix, McCambridge raised the issue of whether the trial court violated his constitutional rights by denying his motion to dismiss the indictments due to an alleged withholding of exculpatory evidence from the grand jury. See id., Ex. 2 at 1.

The Appeals Court affirmed McCambridge's manslaughter conviction, but reversed his conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm, reasoning that the trial justice should have instructed the jury on the defense of necessity with respect to the count for unlawful possession. See McCambridge, 44 Mass.App.Ct. at 291, 690 N.E.2d 470. McCambridge filed an application for leave to obtain further appellate review with the Supreme Judicial Court on March 5, 1998. He presented the following issues for review: (1) whether the Appeals Court improperly concluded that the admission of illegally seized items in evidence was harmless error; (2) whether the Commonwealth bears the burden of showing that an item which was on the defendant's person before he became unconscious was legally obtained; (3) whether "the trial court's erroneous failure to charge on necessity as to the gun offense impact[ed] the murder indictment and self defense claim by leading the jury to believe that the defendant's use of the gun was, as matter of law, unlawful and improper"; and (4) whether "the prosecutor violate[d] the defendant's state and federal due process rights in the manner in which he withheld the alleged victim's record and exploited that issue." Resp't's Supplemental Answer, Ex. 8 at 5-6.

The Supreme Judicial Court denied McCambridge's application for further review on March 27, 1998. See id., Ex. 10. McCambridge filed this petition for habeas corpus relief on January 11, 1998. On September 8, 1999, this Court partly granted Respondent's motion to dismiss, ruling that McCambridge's claim relating to seized clothing was merely a variation on his Fourth Amendment argument that was resolved in state court, and was nonreviewable on federal habeas review under Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976). His remaining two claims are addressed herein.

III. DISCUSSION

A. The Superior Court's Failure to Charge the Jury on the Concept of Necessity

1. Background

McCambridge's first claim for habeas relief is based upon the trial court's failure to charge the jury on the concept of necessity. Some background is necessary to follow the logic of McCambridge's argument.

At his trial, McCambridge testified that he and the victim Doyle were friends who, on the night in question, were on their way home from a café in Cambridge. See McCambridge, 44 Mass.App.Ct. at 288, 690 N.E.2d 470. Doyle, who was driving, wanted to make a stop in Quincy, but McCambridge wanted to go home first. A heated argument ensued during which, McCambridge testified, he called Doyle a name which implied that Doyle had abused a child, an accusation which in the past had enraged Doyle. In response to that comment, Doyle pulled out a 9mm Smith & Wesson gun from his waist band. McCambridge, reacting to the threat, grabbed a derringer pistol from the dashboard (where Doyle had placed it minutes earlier). McCambridge fired that gun at Doyle when he saw Doyle cock the hammer of his own gun. See id. The vehicular accident followed. McCambridge claimed to have no memory of anything after he fired the derringer. The pistol was later found in his possession when it fell out of his clothing while he was being loaded into the ambulance. McCambridge's theory at trial was self-defense.²

At the close of the final instructions to the jury, McCambridge requested that the trial justice give an instruction on the defense of necessity as it related to the charge of illegal possession of a firearm. See Trial Tr. at 4-153, Commonwealth v. McCambridge, No. 93-11874 (Mass.Super. Ct. Jan. 19, 1995) (hereinafter "Trial Tr. at ___"). The theory behind the request was that necessity might be a defense to the illegal possession charge when the defendant took possession of and used a nearby available firearm to defend himself from an imminent threat.³ The trial justice declined so to instruct, and McCambridge's objection was noted. See id. at 5-154. On appeal, the Appeals Court of Massachusetts ruled that the necessity instruction should have been given and that reversal of the conviction for illegal possession of a firearm was required. See McCambridge, 44 Mass.App.Ct. at 291, 690 N.E.2d 470.

McCambridge now wishes to take his successful appeal on this ground one step further, arguing that the trial court's failure to provide a necessity instruction on the possession charge also taints his conviction for manslaughter. His argument is that the jury might have mistakenly construed the use of an unlawfully possessed firearm as the use of unreasonable or improper force, based on the judge's instructions on self-defense. McCambridge also made this argument to the Appeals Court, which ruled that there was no risk that the jury could have interpreted the instructions in that way. See McCambridge, 44 Mass.App.Ct. at 292, 690 N.E.2d 470.

2. Procedural Default

McCambridge's first hurdle in pursuing this claim is to demonstrate that he did not procedurally default on it by failing to raise it at his trial. "Federal habeas review is generally precluded when a state court reaches its decision on the basis of an adequate and independent state ground." Magee v. Harshbarger, 16 F.3d 469, 471 (1st Cir.1994) (citing Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 [1991]). "Where a state court decision rests on a petitioner's failure to comply with a contemporaneous objection rule at the time of trial, this constitutes an adequate and independent ground." Id. (citing Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 81, 97 S.Ct. 2497 [1977]). See also Gilday v. Callahan, 59 F.3d 257, 273-74 (1st Cir.1995); Boutwell v. Bissonnette, 66 F.Supp.2d 243, 244-46 (D.Mass.1999).

Counsel for McCambridge requested that the trial justice provide an instruction of necessity concerning the possession charge only. See Trial Tr. at 4-153. No concern was raised that a failure to charge on necessity with respect to the possession charge might also cause the jury improperly to conclude that the unlawful possession of a firearm must indicate unreasonable force. This specific objection — that the missing necessity charge implicated the elements of the manslaughter charge — was not raised until McCambridge's appeal.

Although the seeds were thus sown for the finding of a procedural default on appeal, the Appeals Court of Massachusetts did not invoke procedural default in order to deny this claim of McCambridge's appeal. Rather, the Appeals Court faced the issue on its merits and determined that "there was no risk that the jury could have interpreted the judge's instructions that way." McCambridge, ...