Case Title: Commonwealth v. Mattier

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-11946

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2016-05-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 
volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical 
error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of 
Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 
Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-
1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 
 
SJC-11946  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  BRANDEN E. MATTIER.   
 
 
 
Suffolk.     January 7, 2016. - May 2, 2016. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, 
& Hines, JJ. 
 
 
Practice, Criminal, Execution of sentence, Sentence. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on August 29, 2013. 
 
 
A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Kenneth 
W. Salinger, J.; the cases were tried before Jeffrey A. Locke, 
J.; and a motion for stay of execution of sentence was 
considered by Locke, J. 
 
 
A motion for stay of execution of sentence filed in the 
Supreme Judicial Court was referred to Spina, J., and was 
considered by him. 
 
 
 
Rebecca A. Jacobstein, Committee for Public Counsel 
Services, for the defendant. 
 
Randall E. Ravitz, Assistant Attorney General (Gina 
Masotta, Assistant Attorney General, with him) for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
HINES, J.  The defendant, Branden E. Mattier, was convicted 
by a jury on three indictments charging conspiracy, G. L. 
2 
 
c. 274, § 7; attempted larceny, G. L. c. 274, § 6; and identity 
fraud, G. L. c. 266, § 37E, respectively.  The charges stemmed 
from an attempt by the defendant and his half-brother to defraud 
One Fund Boston, Inc. (One Fund),1 of approximately $2 million by 
claiming that a long-deceased aunt had been injured in the 2013 
bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  The judge 
imposed a State prison sentence of from three years to three 
years and one day on the conspiracy charge and concurrent 
sentences of three years' probation for the attempted larceny 
and identity fraud charges, to run from and after the committed 
sentence.   
 
The defendant appealed from his convictions and filed in 
the trial court a motion for stay of the execution of his 
sentence pending appeal.  The judge denied the motion.  After 
his appeal was docketed in the Appeals Court, the defendant 
filed a motion for stay of the execution of the sentence in that 
court.  We granted the defendant's application for direct 
appellate review of his appeal, and thereafter, the defendant 
filed a motion for stay in this court.  The matter was referred 
to the single justice, who denied the motion.  The defendant 
filed this appeal from the single justice's order, together with 
                     
 
1 One Fund Boston, Inc., was established as a charitable 
organization to collect and distribute funds to assist the 
victims of the April, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing.   
3 
 
a motion for an expedited ruling.2  In response to the 
defendant's motion for an expedited ruling on his appeal from 
the single justice's order denying the stay, we now address 
separately the merits of that aspect of his appeal.   
 
Analysis.  We review the single justice's order denying a 
motion for stay to determine (1) "whether the single justice 
committed error of law in declining to make an independent 
exercise of discretion on the issue of the stay of execution, in 
place of that made by the trial judge"; and (2) whether the 
single justice erred in ruling that the trial judge's action on 
the motion to stay was not an abuse of discretion.  Commonwealth 
v. Hodge (No. 1), 380 Mass. 851, 852 (1980).  The single justice 
and the trial judge, as they were entitled to do, denied relief 
without explanation.  See Commonwealth v. Cohen (No. 2), 456 
Mass. 128, 132-133 (2010).   
 
When considering the merits of a motion to stay the 
execution of a sentence, two factors are considered:  (1) 
whether the defendant's appeal presents "an issue which is 
worthy of presentation to an appellate court, one which offers 
some reasonable possibility of a successful decision," 
Commonwealth v. Allen, 378 Mass. 489, 498 (1979), quoting 
                     
 
2 The defendant's appeal from the convictions has not been 
consolidated with his appeal from the single justice's order 
declining to stay execution of his sentence.    
4 
 
Commonwealth v. Levin, 7 Mass. App. Ct. 501, 504 (1979); and (2) 
"whether the defendant's release poses a security risk," 
Commonwealth v. Charles, 466 Mass. 63, 77 (2013).  The first 
prong is a "pure question of law or legal judgment."  Allen, 
supra, citing Levin, supra at 505.  Without in any way 
prejudging the merits of the defendant's direct appeal, we are 
not persuaded that he has met his burden to establish a 
"reasonable possibility of . . . success[]" such that the single 
justice's denial of the motion to stay was an abuse of 
discretion.3     
 
To prevail on this aspect of his appeal from the single 
justice's order, the defendant must demonstrate a reasonable 
possibility of success on his challenge to the conspiracy 
conviction, the crime for which the judge imposed the committed 
portion of the sentence.  The defendant makes two arguments in 
his attempt to meet this burden:  (1) the evidence supporting 
the conspiracy conviction was secured as the result of an 
unlawful arrest on the identity fraud charge and should not have 
been admitted at trial; and (2) the remaining evidence offered 
by the Commonwealth to prove the conspiracy charge was 
"virtually non-existent."  Where, as here, the success of the 
                     
 
3 Because of our conclusion regarding the reasonable 
likelihood of success, we do not analyze whether the defendant 
poses a security risk. 
5 
 
defendant's appeal from the conspiracy conviction depends in 
large part on the validity of the identity fraud conviction, the 
defendant's burden is to demonstrate as well a reasonable 
possibility of success on his appeal from the identity fraud 
conviction and that reversal of the identity fraud conviction 
vitiates the conspiracy conviction.  We are not persuaded that 
he has done so.   
 
The defendant contends that the conviction fails as a 
matter of law on two grounds:  (1) the forgery of a physician's 
letter submitted as part of the fraudulent One Fund claim does 
not meet the statutory requirement that the defendant "pose as 
[another] person"; and (2) the defendant did not obtain anything 
of value while posing as that physician.  Building on this 
argument, the defendant contends that the evidence seized as a 
result of the warrantless arrest on the identity fraud and 
attempted larceny charges must be suppressed.  The motion to 
suppress was erroneously denied, so the argument goes, because 
in the absence of conduct implicating the identity fraud 
statute, the police had no probable cause for the arrest on that 
charge and the warrantless arrest for attempted larceny, a 
misdemeanor, cannot stand.  
 
We conclude that regardless of the merits of the appeal 
from the identity fraud conviction, the denial of the stay was 
not an abuse of discretion where the evidence was lawfully 
6 
 
seized on an alternative ground.  More specifically, the 
information contained in the affidavit in support of the search 
warrant application established probable cause to arrest the 
defendant for attempted larceny and authorized the search of the 
defendant at the time of the arrest.  In particular, the 
affidavit contained the following information establishing 
probable cause for the attempted larceny arrest:  (1) On June 
12, 2013, the defendant submitted a claim on behalf of Onevia 
Bradley for injuries alleged to have occurred at the site of the 
Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013; (2) the claim 
incorporated a forged letter purporting to be from Peter A. 
Burke, M.D., at the Boston Medical Center; and (3) Bradley died 
on May 19, 2000.  We conclude, based on the affidavit, that the 
police had probable cause for the arrest and that the subsequent 
search was lawful.  Also, the warrant expressly authorized the 
seizure of mobile devices and the search of the defendant at the 
residence where the arrest took place.   
 
Last, where the defendant's cellular telephone was lawfully 
seized, the cellular telephone text messages implicating the 
defendant in the conspiracy as charged were properly admitted at 
trial.  Thus, the defendant's failure to make the requisite 
showing as to the conspiracy conviction is fatal to his claim 
for a stay pending appeal.   
 
Accordingly, we conclude that the single justice did not 
7 
 
err in finding that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion 
in denying the defendant's motion for stay.  Nor do we discern 
any abuse of discretion by the single justice in electing not to 
exercise independent discretion in review of the trial judge's 
order.  We therefore affirm the decision of the single justice. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.