IRELAND, C.J.
The defendant, Joseph Morgan, was convicted of murder in the first degree on the theory of felony-murder with armed assault with the intent to rob as the predicate felony.
1. Motion to suppress. The defendant claims that the judge erred in denying his motion to suppress statements he made to police. He argues that his waiver of his right to a prompt arraignment pursuant to Commonwealth v. Rosario, 422 Mass. 48, 56 (1996), was not voluntary because the delay in the arraignment amounted to "psychological coercion."
In reviewing a decision on a motion to suppress, "we accept the judge's subsidiary findings of fact absent clear error `but
At 1:20 A.M. on July 5, 2006, the defendant, then twenty-one years of age, was arrested for the murder of Alberto Cintron (victim).
Later that morning, at 8 A.M., Detective James Latham of the Lowell police department reported to the station. He and Detective Mark Poirier went to the cell block in the basement to escort the defendant to the criminal bureau on the first floor to have "major case prints" of the defendant taken by the State police. Taking "major case prints" involves the use of a roller and other equipment not available to the Lowell police department. The State police technician, among other things, takes palm prints and measures a suspect's thumb and hand size. The equipment had been set up in an interview room, so Detectives Latham and Poirier brought the defendant to that room.
Between 10:30 and 10:45 A.M., the detectives were notified that the State police had completed their work and that the defendant was ready to be returned to his cell. As the officers were about to escort the defendant back to the cell block, Detective Poirier asked the defendant whether he would like to speak with them. The defendant replied that he would think about it. After a few minutes by himself, the defendant said he would speak with them.
While in the interview room, the defendant was offered a soda and a cigarette, which he accepted. After three or four minutes, Detective Poirier read the defendant the Miranda warnings from
The tape recorder was activated. On the recording, to which we have listened, the defendant's voice is clear and calm, as is Detective Latham's. There is no hint of nervousness and no tone of coercion on Detective Latham's part. Detective Latham first reviewed the Miranda warnings as designated on the preprinted form line by line. After each warning was read, the defendant indicated that he understood what was read to him. Detective Latham then stated that there was another waiver form, the Rosario waiver form. Detective Latham asked the defendant to read aloud the first paragraph of this form.
After the recorder was stopped, the defendant read the Rosario waiver form to himself and signed it at 11:02 A.M. Then he gave a brief unrecorded statement. He was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and he was coherent. He gave the statement in narrative form after Detective Latham asked him what happened the previous day. The defendant's narrative was clear and it was recited in chronological order. The interview ended when another officer knocked on the door and told Detective Latham that the defendant's attorney had arrived to speak with him. The police
In Commonwealth v. Rosario, supra at 56, the court held that an "otherwise admissible statement is not to be excluded on the ground of unreasonable delay in arraignment, if the statement is made within six hours of the arrest (day or night), or if (at any time) the defendant made an informed and voluntary written. . . waiver of his right to be arraigned without unreasonable delay." See Mass. R. Crim. P. 7 (a) (1), as appearing in 442 Mass. 1506 (2004) ("A defendant who has been arrested shall be brought before a court if then in session, and if not, at its next session"). Here, the judge found that the defendant's statements were voluntary; were made after he voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived his Miranda rights; and were made after he voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived (in writing) his Rosario rights. The judge's findings and conclusions are supported by the evidence and there is no reason to disturb them. To adopt the defendant's argument, that the psychological pressure of being in custody prior to arraignment suffices by itself to negate the voluntariness of a waiver of the Rosario rights, would obviate the utility of a waiver of the Rosario rights and would lead to the suppression of any statement made after the six-hour safe harbor period. This is not the governing law. Rather, when a defendant makes a statement outside the safe harbor period and after making an informed and voluntary written waiver of his Rosario rights, as was the case here, his statement is admissible. Commonwealth v. Rosario, supra. There was no error in denying the defendant's motion to suppress.
2. Facts. The jury could have found the following. On July 4, 2006, at approximately 2:30 A.M., the victim was shot inside his second-floor apartment at 115 Shaw Street in Lowell. The victim was shot five times: three times in the front and twice in the back. The victim telephoned 911. He provided his address and stated that he had been shot three times. He told the dispatcher that "Chris," who lived in the apartment downstairs from him, shot him, and that "there was an Asian kid with him."
Lowell police officers responded to the victim's apartment and
The victim was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He suffered gunshot entrance wounds to areas near his right shoulder, front chest, left rib cage, back right armpit, and midback. He died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds to his torso. At the time of his death, he had significant amounts of alcohol in his system.
The victim was not alone in his apartment when he was shot. After drinking together at a local bar, the victim invited his friend, Curtis Glenn, back to his apartment. When they arrived, the victim entered and remarked that something was not "right" because the lights would not work and his dog did not come to greet him.
The victim went to the bathroom, opened the door and turned on a light. As he did, his dog came running out. A masked man stepped out from the living room holding a gun with a laser. The victim walked right up to the man and then around him. Thinking that some kind of joke was occurring, Glenn went over to the kitchen table. Another masked man by the kitchen stove (who wore sunglasses and also possessed a gun with a laser) appeared and said, "Get down." Glenn went toward the bathroom and got down on the floor, facing the living room. The masked man in the kitchen kept his gun pointed at Glenn. The victim went into the kitchen, and Glenn crawled into the living room. A "scuffle" then broke out. Glenn got up and ran to a bedroom, where he escaped out a window that he had to break. As he was running to the bedroom, he heard gunshots and looked behind him. Glenn saw the masked man who earlier had aimed his gun at Glenn (the man with the sunglasses) fire in the direction of the kitchen.
After jumping out the window, Glenn got to his feet and ran. Soon thereafter, he encountered a police officer, who had responded
Two witnesses, Scott Russell and Colin Michael Ferderer, identified the defendant as having been involved in the shooting. Each witness testified pursuant to a plea agreement with the Commonwealth.
Russell and Ferderer were friends. Ferderer worked at a Cumberland Farms store in Nashua, New Hampshire, and met Russell while working there. Russell worked next door at a Dunkin' Donuts store. To supplement their income, Russell and Ferderer each sold marijuana. In addition, when Ferderer was working, he would turn a "blind eye" while Russell stole digital video discs (DVDs) from the Cumberland Farms store. Russell would then sell these items to make money. Also, instead of placing customer payments inside the register at work, Ferderer would pocket the money.
Ferderer lived in Nashua in the basement of his parents' house. His father kept several guns in the house; they were contained in various safes. His father also had a machine to make ammunition. When Ferderer was eighteen years of age, he obtained a license to carry firearms in New Hampshire.
At the time of the shooting, Russell lived in a first-floor apartment at 115 Shaw Street in Lowell, which was a ten- to twelve-minute drive from Nashua. Russell shared the apartment with a woman, Jessie Supernault,
A few weeks before the shooting, Russell, Ferderer, the defendant, and Middlemiss came up with a plan to rob the victim. The
Several conversations concerning how to rob the victim ensued. The defendant asked Supernault whether she could obtain a key to the victim's apartment. Supernault replied that she would try to get a key from Angie. On another occasion, Russell, the defendant, and Middlemiss inquired of Ferderer if he could bring them some guns. Initially Ferderer put them off, but he eventually agreed to supply guns if they were needed. Supernault later obtained a key to the victim's apartment from Angie and gave it to Russell for safekeeping.
At about noon on July 3, Russell left the apartment with his girl friend. When he left, others who had spent the night were still sleeping, including the defendant, Middlemiss, and Do. Russell returned to an empty apartment around 11:30 P.M. About twenty minutes later, the defendant and Middlemiss arrived. The defendant was upset because his automobile had broken down at a beach and he needed money to get it back. He asked Russell to get the key to the victim's apartment. The defendant and Middlemiss went up to the victim's apartment. They returned shortly thereafter, commenting that they did not find anything. They told Russell to telephone Ferderer and to have him come over with his guns.
Shortly thereafter, Ferderer arrived. He had two loaded guns with him, a Glock, model 30, .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun (Glock 30); and a Glock, model 36, .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol (Glock 36). Both had laser aiming devices, but the one on the Glock 36 was not working well. When Ferderer arrived, he
The defendant and Middlemiss got dressed in black hooded sweatshirts and used bandanas to cover their faces with the sole exception of their eyes.
Approximately twenty minutes later, the defendant used his cellular telephone to contact Russell and instruct him on where to pick them up. Another two calls were made concerning the pick-up location.
As recounted by Ferderer, Middlemiss said that the victim had come home with another man. The defendant brandished his gun and told the victim to "get down." The victim walked over to the defendant and asked what was going on. The victim let the dog out of the bathroom. The dog went over to Middlemiss who was in the living room, sniffed him, and walked off. The victim said, "Chris?" The victim and the defendant then engaged in a struggle. The victim had the defendant in a headlock and was reaching for the defendant's gun.
Ferderer stopped at the Cumberland Farms where he worked and got a cigar. The others placed the clothing used by the defendant and Middlemiss into a dumpster. They went to Ferderer's house, where he cleaned the guns and put them back into their respective safes. The defendant telephoned Supernault, told her what had happened, and asked her to remove anything that might implicate him as living in the first-floor apartment.
In the morning, Russell telephoned Supernault, but a Lowell police officer answered and asked him to come to the police station for questioning. Russell and the others developed false alibis and went their separate ways.
From the victim's apartment, police seized cash in the amount of $1,246. They also recovered four .45 caliber discharged cartridge casings and two .45 caliber spent projectiles. One discharged cartridge casing was found in the living room, and the other three were in the kitchen. One of the discharged cartridge casings contained a distinct manufacturing marking indicative of having been made by the Hornady Manufacturing Company. With regard to the projectiles, one projectile was retrieved from the kitchen, and another from a mattress in the bedroom.
On the day of the shooting, after the police had left, the brother of the victim went to the apartment to gather his personal belongings. In the living room he found two .45 caliber discharged cartridge casings, one of which bore a Hornady manufacturing
Three spent .45 caliber projectiles were recovered from the victim's body during the autopsy. No comparisons of the projectiles to the Glock 30 or Glock 36 could be made because the projectiles were too damaged.
Police found a black ankle holster inside the defendant's apartment.
Police recovered the Glock 30 and the Glock 36 from Ferderer's father. The Commonwealth introduced expert testimony of a State firearms identification analyst that, based on his microscopic examination, the three discharged cartridge casings recovered by police in the kitchen had been fired from the Glock 36. He also opined that the discharged cartridge casing found by police in the living room had been fired from the Glock 30. With respect to the discharged cartridge casings taken by the victim's brother, the Commonwealth's expert opined that one had been fired from the Glock 36, and the other from the Glock 30.
On July 4 and July 5, Russell was questioned by police, and on July 5, Ferderer was questioned. After initially lying to police, the men eventually revealed that they, along with the defendant and Middlemiss, had planned to rob, but not shoot, the victim.
The police spoke with the defendant three times after the shooting. In each instance and before any questioning occurred, the defendant was read the Miranda warnings and agreed in writing to waive his rights. He also was advised (in each instance) that his interview with police could be tape recorded, but he declined twice in writing and once verbally to consent to such a recording.
The defendant did not testify and did not call any witnesses to testify. The defendant introduced a stipulation providing that, prior to July 4, 2006, he had never been arrested. In his closing, the defendant's trial counsel argued that Russell and Ferderer were liars and presented inconsistencies in their versions of what had occurred. The defendant's trial counsel went on to suggest that the victim had no motive to lie and identified an Asian male, not the defendant, in the shooting. Defense counsel suggested that, based on Glenn's estimation of the height of the masked men, the Asian male was Jesse Do. Last, defense counsel pointed out that there was no forensic evidence tying the defendant to the shooting.
3. Admission of bad act evidence. At trial, Russell testified that sometime between May and June of 2006, the defendant told him that he made money by breaking into motor vehicles and stealing the valuables therein. Russell's testimony came as no surprise, for it had been the subject of a defense motion in limine on which the judge ruled in the Commonwealth's favor. After Russell's testimony, the judge gave a limiting instruction to the jury that they could not consider this evidence as "proof that the defendant committed the crimes charged, nor . . . as proof that the defendant has a criminal propensity or bad character." The judge went on to say that the jury could consider this evidence "solely on the limited issue of the defendant's motive to commit the alleged crimes." Later in the trial, Ferderer
"It is well settled that the prosecution may not introduce evidence that a defendant previously has misbehaved . . . for the purposes of showing his bad character or propensity to commit the crime charged. . . ." Commonwealth v. Helfant, 398 Mass. 214, 224 (1986). "Such evidence may be admissible, however, if relevant for some other probative purpose, including to show intent, motive, state of mind, or some other relevant issue at trial." Commonwealth v. Robidoux, 450 Mass. 144, 158 (2007), citing Commonwealth v. DelValle, 443 Mass. 782, 790 (2005). "Additionally, the `prosecution [is] entitled to present as full a picture as possible of the events surrounding the incident itself,' as long as the probative value of the evidence presented is not substantially outweighed by any prejudice to the defendant." Commonwealth v. Robidoux, supra, quoting Commonwealth v. Marrero, 427 Mass. 65, 67 (1998). "Determinations of the relevance, probative value, and prejudice of such evidence are left to the sound discretion of the judge, whose decision to admit such evidence will be upheld absent clear error." Commonwealth v. Robidoux, supra, and cases cited. See generally Mass. G. Evid. § 404(b) (2011).
There was no error in admitting evidence of the defendant's
Although the better course would have been for the judge also to have given a limiting instruction (on the subject of the defendant's prior bad acts) at the time of Ferderer's testimony, defense counsel did not request an instruction at that time and the judge had correctly instructed the jury on the subject at the time of Russell's testimony (which was prior to Ferderer's) and then did so again during his final charge to the jury. Cf. Commonwealth v. McCowen, 458 Mass. 461, 478-479 (2010) (no abuse of discretion in admitting bad act evidence subject to limiting instruction given immediately after evidence was admitted, as well as instruction in final charge). In view of these circumstances and the strength of the Commonwealth's case, the absence of a limiting instruction at the time of Ferderer's testimony did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.
4. Third-party culprit evidence. At trial, there was evidence that the victim identified Middlemiss as the shooter and stated that "an Asian kid" had been with him. There was also evidence that an Asian male, Jesse Do, was a friend of Middlemiss, and often was at the defendant's apartment. The defendant argues that the judge improperly limited his ability to advance a third-party culprit defense, namely, that Do (and not the defendant) had committed the shooting with Middlemiss. The judge did so by not permitting Russell to testify about Do's statements concerning armed robberies he (Do) had committed by himself in May or June of 2006. We determine there was no error.
Third-party culprit evidence is "a time-honored method of defending against a criminal charge." Commonwealth v. Rosa,
Before the judge made his ruling, a voir dire examination of Russell was conducted. Russell testified concerning what Do had relayed to him. Do said that, in May or June of 2006, he made his money by committing armed robberies. Do would jump out of a motor vehicle, run up to someone, and rob him or her at gunpoint. Do used a .22 caliber or nine millimeter weapon. As stated, the judge excluded the testimony.
The defendant argues that the testimony should have been admitted because it would have demonstrated to the jury Do's motive "for going after [the victim]." While the establishment of the presence of another person's motive for committing the crime charged is a proper factor to consider in admitting third-party culprit evidence, it is not the sole factor. The admission of
5. Jury instructions. Although there was evidence that the defendant smoked a marijuana cigar with Russell, Ferderer, and Middlemiss prior to the shooting, there was no evidence suggesting that the defendant was or appeared to be impaired to any degree by his inhalation of marijuana. "Voluntary intoxication instructions are not required where the evidence does not suggest a condition of `debilitating intoxication' that could support a reasonable doubt as to whether a defendant was capable of forming the requisite criminal intent." Commonwealth v. James, 424 Mass. 770, 789 (1997), and cases cited. Because the evidence did not warrant a voluntary drug intoxication instruction, the defendant's argument that his counsel, by failing to request one (in connection with the charge of murder in the first
6. General Laws c. 278, § 33E. We have reviewed the entire record and discern no basis to grant relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.
Judgments affirmed.