Case Title: Commonwealth v. Medina

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-12830

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2020-07-24T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-12830 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  AMADOR MEDINA. 
 
 
 
Worcester.     January 6, 2020.  -  July 24, 2020. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & 
Kafker, JJ. 
 
 
Due Process of Law, Police custody.  Constitutional Law, 
Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement.  
Evidence, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of 
statement.  Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, 
Interlocutory appeal, Admissions and confessions, 
Voluntariness of statement. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on February 17, 2016. 
 
 
A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Shannon 
Frison, J. 
 
 
An application for leave to prosecute an interlocutory 
appeal was allowed by Cypher, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court 
for the county of Suffolk, and the case was transferred by her 
to the Appeals Court.  After review by the Appeals Court, the 
Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain further appellate 
review. 
 
 
 
Ellyn H. Lazar, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
David M. Osborne for the defendant. 
 
2 
 
 
 
 
LENK, J.  The Hartford, Connecticut, police department 
received a tip that the defendant had three human skulls sitting 
on his porch.  Over the next several hours, Hartford police 
officers met with the defendant, first at his apartment, and 
later at a police station, to uncover whether, how, and why he 
had these bones.  After learning that they might have been 
stolen during a grave robbery in Worcester, and at the request 
of the Worcester police, Hartford police officers placed the 
defendant under arrest. 
 
This case is before us on appeal from an order by a 
Superior Court judge allowing the defendant's motion to suppress 
statements he made to Hartford police officers.  The motion 
judge determined that all of these statements were made under 
custodial interrogation, without Miranda warnings, and that they 
were involuntary. 
 
We conclude that the defendant was not subjected to 
custodial interrogation while speaking with officers of the 
Hartford police department at his apartment and, thus, Miranda 
warnings were not required at that time.  In addition, the 
record reflects that the defendant's statements to police there 
were otherwise voluntary.  Accordingly, the motion judge's 
conclusion that all of his statements must be suppressed was 
3 
 
 
erroneous, and the order allowing the defendant's motion to 
suppress must be reversed. 
 
1.  Background.  a.  Facts.  We recite the facts from the 
motion judge's findings, reserving certain details for later 
discussion. 
 
On December 4, 2015, a caller who identified himself as 
"Juan" telephoned 911 and reported that he had seen several sets 
of human remains at the defendant's home.  At approximately 
3:22 P.M., Officer Bryan Gustis of the Hartford police responded 
to the defendant's address in Hartford.  After knocking and 
unsuccessfully trying to enter through a locked front door, 
Gustis went to the back door of the defendant's second-floor 
apartment.  There he was met by the defendant.  Gustis explained 
that the Hartford police had received a complaint about possible 
human remains; the defendant invited him into the apartment to 
discuss it. 
 
Gustis initially was alone with the defendant in the 
apartment, except for two pit bull dogs that were chained up 
inside.  He asked the defendant whether it was true that he had 
human bones.  The defendant responded that he did, and pointed 
out a black plastic bag on his porch.  Gustis could see dirt and 
bones protruding from the top of the bag.  The defendant told 
Gustis that he kept these bones for religious purposes.  He 
"cordial[ly]" explained that he was a priest in the religion of 
4 
 
 
Palo Mayombe, which, he said, "is the darker side of Santeria 
and is a very old religion."  He described the role that bones 
played in rituals of his faith, and how bones of different ages 
had different healing powers.  He told Gustis that, in total, he 
had five sets of human remains in black trash bags.  Gustis 
could see bones inside one partially-opened bag and could see 
other evidence of religious rituals, including numerous 
figurines, candles, and bowls containing additional human bones. 
 
The defendant elaborated on how he came to possess these 
bones.  He said that he had purchased the five sets of human 
remains in May of 2015 from an unidentified man in Worcester, at 
a cost of approximately $3,000 apiece.  Without being asked, he 
showed Gustis photographs on his cellular telephone of the same 
bones when they were still entombed.  Upon learning all of this 
information about the bones, Gustis did not arrest or handcuff 
the defendant. 
 
Additional Hartford police officers arrived at the 
apartment; first Sergeant Labbe, and, later, Detectives Anthony 
Rykowski and Brando Flores.  Each officer spoke with the 
defendant and observed the skeletal remains.  The defendant also 
showed Rykowski the photographs of the bones in their caskets 
that he had shown Gustis.  Signs appearing in the background of 
these photographs indicated that they had been taken in Hope 
5 
 
 
Cemetery, which the defendant confirmed was located in 
Worcester. 
 
Rykowski contacted the Worcester police and learned that, 
in October 2015, a mausoleum in Worcester had been broken into, 
and six sets of human remains had gone missing.  Upon learning 
this, Rykowski informed the defendant that police would be 
removing the bones from his apartment so that they could be 
returned to their families. 
 
Following approximately two and one-half hours of 
continuous discussion at the apartment, Rykowski asked the 
defendant to come to the police station and make a further 
statement.  The defendant agreed, and officers drove him to the 
station.  There, detectives interviewed the defendant for at 
least two more hours; the interview culminated in a written 
statement that the defendant then declined to sign. 
 
Near the end of the interview, Worcester officers told the 
Hartford police that they had probable cause to arrest the 
defendant, and asked that he be held as a fugitive from justice.  
The Hartford police complied, and the defendant was arrested.  
Hartford police officers also sought and received a search 
warrant for the defendant's apartment.  From his first encounter 
with Gustis until his arrest at the station, the defendant was 
never provided Miranda warnings. 
6 
 
 
 
b.  Prior proceedings.  The defendant was indicted on 
several charges related to the removal of human remains from the 
Worcester cemetery.1  In November 2017, he filed a motion to 
suppress evidence and statements; after two evidentiary 
hearings, the motion was allowed in February 2018.  A single 
justice of this court thereafter allowed the Commonwealth's 
petition to pursue an interlocutory appeal in the Appeals Court.  
In a lengthy unpublished opinion issued pursuant to its rule 
1:28,2 the Appeals Court reversed the order allowing the 
defendant's motion to suppress.  Commonwealth v. Medina, 95 
Mass. App. Ct. 1118 (2019).  We allowed the defendant's 
application for further appellate review. 
 
The Commonwealth maintains that the motion judge erred by 
deciding that the defendant was in custody throughout his 
encounter with officers of the Hartford police department, and 
                                                          
 
 
1 The defendant was indicted on two counts of breaking and 
entering at night, in violation of G. L. c. 266, § 16; two 
counts of injuring a tomb, grave or memorial, in violation of 
G. L. c. 272, § 73; nine counts of disinterring a body, in 
violation of G. L. c. 272, § 71, and two counts of conspiracy, 
in violation of G. L. c. 274, § 7.  None of these statutes 
criminalize the defendant's possession of human bones for 
religious purposes; they merely proscribe the manner in which he 
came to possess the bones. 
 
 
2 Under rule 1:28 of the Rules of the Appeals Court, "a 
panel of the justices of th[at] court may determine that no 
substantial question of law is presented by the appeal or that 
some clear error of law has been committed which has injuriously 
affected the substantial rights of an appellant." 
 
7 
 
 
that his statements were involuntary.3  For the reasons that 
follow, we agree. 
 
2.  Discussion.  a.  Standard of review.  "In reviewing a 
ruling on a motion to suppress, we accept the judge's subsidiary 
findings of fact absent clear error 'but conduct an independent 
review of his ultimate findings and conclusions of law.'"  
Commonwealth v. Cawthron, 479 Mass. 612, 616 (2018), quoting 
Commonwealth v. Scott, 440 Mass. 642, 646 (2004). 
 
b.  Custody.  Miranda warnings are required only where a 
suspect is subjected to custodial interrogation.  See 
Commonwealth v. Bryant, 390 Mass. 729, 736 (1984), citing 
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444 (1966).  An interrogation 
becomes custodial when a suspect either is formally "in 
custody," or "otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any 
significant way."  Miranda, supra at 445.  The defendant bears 
the burden to establish the custodial nature of his or her 
encounter with police.  Commonwealth v. Larkin, 429 Mass. 426, 
432 (1999). 
 
"Whether a suspect was subject to custodial interrogation 
is a question of Federal constitutional law."  Id., citing 
Commonwealth v. Morse, 427 Mass. 117, 123 (1998).  Determining 
                                                          
 
 
3 The Commonwealth does not contest that the defendant was 
subjected to interrogation, and that Miranda warnings were not 
given. 
8 
 
 
whether a suspect was "in custody," as the term is used here, 
requires two related inquiries:  "first, what were the 
circumstances surrounding the interrogation; and second, given 
those circumstances, would a reasonable person have felt he or 
she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and 
leave."  See Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112 (1995). 
 
"Not all restraints on freedom of movement amount to 
custody for purposes of Miranda."  Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. 
499, 509 (2012).  See Cawthron, 479 Mass. at 623, quoting Howes, 
supra ("Determining whether an individual's freedom of movement 
was curtailed . . . is simply the first step in the analysis").  
Outside a formal arrest, a suspect is in custody "if the officer 
detaining the suspect treats the suspect in a manner that a 
reasonable person would regard as involving an arrest for 
practical purposes" (quotations omitted).  See 1 McCormick On 
Evid. § 151 (8th ed. 2020) (discussing applicability of Miranda, 
"custody," "interrogation," and exceptions). 
 
When considering "how a suspect would have "'gauge[d]' his 
'freedom of movement,' courts must examine 'all of the 
circumstances surrounding the interrogation.'"  Howes, 565 U.S. 
at 509, quoting Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 322, 325 
(1994).  In Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. 201, 211–212 
(2001), we identified four factors that a court should consider 
when assessing the circumstances surrounding an interrogation.  
9 
 
 
They are "(1) the place of the interrogation; (2) whether the 
officers have conveyed to the person being questioned any belief 
or opinion that that person is a suspect; (3) the nature of the 
interrogation, including whether the interview was aggressive 
or, instead, informal and influenced in its contours by the 
person being interviewed; and (4) whether, at the time the 
incriminating statement was made, the person was free to end the 
interview by leaving the locus of the interrogation or by asking 
the interrogator to leave, as evidenced by whether the interview 
terminated with an arrest."  Id. 
 
In prior decisions, we occasionally have suggested that 
these four factors are the beginning and the end of the custody 
analysis.  See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Amaral, 482 Mass. 496, 501 
(2019) ("Four factors are considered in determining whether a 
person is in custody"); Commonwealth v. Simon, 456 Mass. 280, 
287, cert. denied, 562 U.S. 874 (2010) ("Whether a defendant is 
in custody depends on four factors").  We take this opportunity 
to clarify that they are not. 
 
These "Groome factors" have never been intended as a 
straitjacket.  They provide a framework for assessing what kinds 
of circumstances may be relevant when a court considers whether 
a defendant was in custody; they do not limit the obligation of 
a court to consider all of the circumstances that shed light on 
10 
 
 
the custody analysis.4  See Groome, 435 Mass. at 211 (court must 
"consider[] all the circumstances").  Indeed, any effort to 
establish such a limit would conflict with governing Federal 
law.  Regardless of the tools a court employs to organize its 
analysis, the ultimate question remains the same:  whether the 
defendant was subjected to "a formal arrest or restraint on 
freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal 
arrest" (quotations and citation omitted).  Thompson, 516 U.S. 
at 112.  See Cawthron, 479 Mass. at 623. 
 
Here, the defendant's several-hours-long encounter with 
police occurred in two locations; initial interviews with police 
officers at his apartment were followed by further questioning 
at the police station.  To succeed in his motion to suppress all 
of the statements he made, the defendant must meet his burden to 
prove that he was in custody throughout the encounter.  We 
examine all of the surrounding circumstances to determine "how a 
reasonable [person] in the [defendant's] position would have 
understood his situation."  Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 
442 (1984). 
                                                          
 
 
4 As we are interpreting Federal law, and both Massachusetts 
and Connecticut courts apply the proper totality of the 
circumstances analysis, we need not determine whether 
Massachusetts or Connecticut law is applicable.  Compare 
Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. 201, 211 (2001) (recognizing 
totality of circumstances analysis); with State v. Mangual, 311 
Conn. 182, 196-197 (2014) (accord). 
11 
 
 
 
c.  Nature of the interviews.  When the defendant first 
spoke with Hartford police officers, he was in his own 
apartment, a setting "far removed from the incommunicado 
interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere 
for which the Miranda protections were tailored" (quotations and 
citation omitted).  See Bryant, 390 Mass. at 737.  In such a 
setting, "questioning tends to be significantly less 
intimidating than questioning in unfamiliar locations."  United 
States v. Crooker, 688 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2012). 
 
The officers who interviewed the defendant did not 
transform his apartment into a coercive environment.  The first 
officer to arrive came alone, knocked on the defendant's door, 
and only entered the apartment with the defendant's permission.  
See Commonwealth v. Sneed, 440 Mass. 216, 221 (2003) (no custody 
where suspect "voluntarily admitted her questioners into the 
familiar surroundings of her home").  Although more officers 
arrived over the following two hours, it does not appear that 
they meaningfully restricted the defendant's freedom of movement 
within his home.  See Crooker, 688 F.3d at 11–12 (no custody 
despite presence of numerous armed officers in home, due to lack 
of physical restraint and cooperative interactions).  Compare 
United States v. Axsom, 289 F.3d 496, 502 (8th Cir. 2002) (nine 
officers executing search warrant in home did not render 
interrogation custodial), with United States v. Hashime, 734 
12 
 
 
F.3d 278, 284 (4th Cir. 2013) (custody where home was "occupied 
by a flood of armed officers who proceeded to evict him and his 
family and restrict their movements once let back inside").  Nor 
did the officers assert control over the surroundings, such as 
by removing the defendant's two pit bulls that were chained up 
in the apartment.  In the absence of police domination, the 
defendant's home remained an inherently noncoercive setting. 
 
During this first stage of questioning, police officers did 
not signal to the defendant that he was suspected of committing 
any crime.  Cf. Groome, 435 Mass. at 211-212.  Rather, they 
explained that they had received a report that human remains 
were in the defendant's home, and were responding to learn 
whether that report was accurate. 
 
Notwithstanding the officers' testimony to the contrary, 
the motion judge determined that they should have known, and 
indeed did know, that they were investigating the defendant on 
suspicion of criminal activity.  She concluded that this 
knowledge contributed to the custodial nature of the 
interrogation.   While the officers well may have known that they 
had uncovered evidence of a crime during their time in the 
defendant's apartment,5 their subjective understanding alone does 
not alter the custody analysis. 
                                                          
 
 
5 Later in the evening, officers sought and received a 
search warrant for the defendant's apartment.  In the search 
13 
 
 
 
"[C]ustody must be determined based on how a reasonable 
person in the suspect's situation would perceive his 
circumstances," Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 662 
(2004), "not on the subjective views harbored by either the 
interrogating officers or the person being questioned," 
Stansbury, 511 U.S. at 323.  "[S]ubjective beliefs held by law 
enforcement officers are irrelevant in the determination whether 
a person being questioned is in custody for purposes of the 
receipt of Miranda warnings, except to the extent that those 
beliefs influence the objective conditions surrounding an 
interrogation."  Morse, 427 Mass. at 123–124.  Because any 
suspicions that the officers harbored remained unexpressed at 
this point, the motion judge erred by giving weight to those 
suspicions in the custody analysis. 
 
The nature of the officers' questioning also was consistent 
with the noncustodial nature of this interaction.  When speaking 
to the defendant in his apartment, the officers' questions were 
"investigatory rather than accusatory." Commonwealth v. Kirwan, 
448 Mass. 304, 311 (2007).  There is no indication that the 
                                                          
 
warrant application, Detective Anthony Rykowski stated his 
belief that, "upon searching [the defendant's] apartment, the 
affiants will locate evidence that the crime of [l]arceny by 
possession had occurred."  The motion judge made no finding, 
however, that this suspicion was communicated to the defendant, 
or even that the defendant was aware that a search warrant was 
being sought while he spoke to police at the station. 
14 
 
 
officers raised their voices, threatened the defendant, or 
expressed disbelief in response to his answers.  See Sneed, 440 
Mass. at 221 (no custody, in part, because there was "no 
evidence of shouting or raised voices on the part of the 
investigators"). 
 
For his part, the defendant was "cordial" and cooperative.  
On several occasions, he offered additional information and 
evidence without any prompting by the officers.  Indeed, the 
motion judge's findings reflect that the defendant sought to 
discuss, at length, the role that the human remains played in 
his religious practices.  Whereas the "contours of the 
discussion with [police] were left entirely up to the 
defendant," Groome, 435 Mass. at 213, the officers' questions 
did not exert the kind of coercive pressure associated with 
custodial interrogation. 
 
In her order allowing the motion to suppress, the judge 
placed dispositive weight on the fourth and final Groome factor.  
She found that, had the defendant tried to leave or to put the 
police out of his apartment, they would not have allowed him to 
do so.  Primarily for that reason, she concluded that the 
defendant was in custody in his apartment.  We do not agree. 
 
While freedom to leave "may be a critical factor . . . it 
cannot be the determinative factor."  Cawthron, 479 Mass. 
at 623.  This factor is relevant only insofar as officers 
15 
 
 
communicate to a defendant, through word and action, that he or 
she is being detained.  Here, the judge made no finding that the 
defendant had asked whether he was free to leave, nor that the 
officers had expressed that he was not.  Where the motion 
judge's conclusion was based entirely on the subjective, 
uncommunicated views of the questioning officers, her conclusion 
that the defendant was in custody cannot stand. 
 
Rather, we must look to the objective features of the 
encounter to see whether a reasonable person in the defendant's 
position would not have felt free to leave or to put the 
officers out of his apartment.  According to the judge's 
findings, the defendant never was placed in handcuffs or told 
that he was under arrest.  Nor did the officers place him under 
arrest at the conclusion of the questioning at his apartment.  
See Bryant, 390 Mass. at 742 n.15 ("the nonarrest of the suspect 
at the close of the interrogation is often deemed indicative of 
the lack of a custodial atmosphere during interrogation").  In 
light of the over-all nature of his interaction with the police, 
a reasonable person in the defendant's position likely would 
have concluded that he was still free to leave or cut off 
questioning at that point. 
 
We acknowledge, however, that other circumstances 
surrounding the initial encounter were consistent with custody.  
As the defendant notes, it was the police, and not the 
16 
 
 
defendant, who sought out this interview.  See State v. Mangual, 
311 Conn. 182, 199 (2014) ("when the confrontation between the 
suspect and the criminal justice system is instigated at the 
direction of law enforcement authorities, rather than the 
suspect, custody is more likely to exist" [citation omitted]).  
Further, while the officers' questions themselves were not 
coercive, the defendant was asked to offer the same explanation 
to three separate sets of officers in quick succession.  See 
United States v. Bekowies, 432 F.2d 8, 13 (9th Cir. 1970) 
("close and persistent questioning . . . [among other factors] 
may reasonably induce in a suspect the belief that he is no 
longer free to go about his business without significant 
restraint").  Additionally, as the questioning went on, the 
defendant continued to offer more incriminating statements and 
evidence to the officers.  In some circumstances, when a suspect 
"makes incriminating statements, a previously noncustodial 
setting can become custodial."  Commonwealth v. Hilton, 443 
Mass. 597, 611-612 (2005), S.C., 450 Mass. 173 (2007). 
 
Nonetheless, these conditions do not tip the scales in 
favor of a determination of custody at the defendant's 
apartment.  The picture that emerges from these initial 
interviews is that of a man speaking openly with officers about 
his possession of human remains and the religious practices that 
motivated him, rather than a suspect reacting to coercive 
17 
 
 
pressure from the police.  Viewing all of the circumstances 
through the eyes of the defendant, we conclude that he has not 
met his burden of showing that he was in custody while at his 
apartment. 
 
It is not clear on the record before us whether the nature 
of the interview changed after the defendant agreed to accompany 
officers to the police station.  The motion judge, having 
already concluded that the defendant was in custody while being 
questioned at his apartment, made relatively few findings about 
this later interrogation.  She found only that the defendant was 
present at the station for a number of hours before being 
arrested, and that, for at least two of those hours, he was 
questioned by police officers.  Although officers testified 
about the particular location and nature of the interrogation, 
the motion judge did not incorporate those facts into her 
findings.  Accordingly, their testimony fell under the motion 
judge's prefatory statement that "[a]ny facts relayed at the 
hearing but not recited below were not credited by the [c]ourt."6 
                                                          
 
 
6 The motion judge's prefatory statement does not, however, 
"relieve [her] of [her] obligation to make adequate findings."  
See Commonwealth v. Tremblay, 480 Mass. 645, 660 (2018).  While 
a busy trial court judge "need not make findings with respect to 
every piece of evidence in the record, irrespective of 
pertinence," a motion judge cannot omit testimony where doing so 
"unnecessarily impairs our ability on the entire evidence to 
evaluate whether the judge's findings adequately support his [or 
her] ultimate conclusions of law."  See id. 
18 
 
 
 
We do not know the conditions the defendant was in at the 
police station, and therefore cannot determine whether a 
reasonable person in those conditions would have felt that, 
effectively, he was under arrest.  Consequently, without these 
missing details, we cannot determine whether the defendant was 
in custody at the police station.  Regardless of the 
circumstances surrounding the interview at the police station, 
however, the substance of the defendant's statements does not 
appear to have changed.  There is no indication in the record 
that the defendant provided any novel information to police 
officers at the station beyond the full accounting he provided 
during the noncustodial encounter at his apartment.  Even 
assuming the defendant was in custody while at the police 
station, his earlier statements while at his apartment 
nonetheless would not be subject to suppression.  See Hilton, 
443 Mass. at 613 (judge erred in suppressing defendant's 
confession at police station made prior to moment she was in 
custody). 
 
Moreover, in her decision, the motion judge did not 
differentiate between the questioning at the apartment and the 
police station.  Rather, her conclusion that Miranda warnings 
were required was predicated entirely on her determination that 
the defendant was in custody at his apartment.  Because we 
conclude that he was not, the motion judge's decision 
19 
 
 
suppressing the defendant's statements on this ground was 
erroneous. 
 
d.  Voluntariness.  The judge further concluded that the 
defendant's statements to police were involuntary, in violation 
of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United 
States Constitution and art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration 
of Rights. 
 
On a motion to suppress, "[t]he initial burden is on the 
defendant to produce evidence tending to show that his statement 
was involuntary; if he satisfies this burden, the Commonwealth 
is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the 
statement was voluntarily made."  Commonwealth v. Montoya, 464 
Mass. 566, 577 (2013).  "In determining whether the defendant's 
statements were voluntary, we consider whether the statements 
were the product of a rational intellect and a free will" 
(quotations and citation omitted).  Commonwealth v. Woodbine, 
461 Mass. 720, 729 (2012).  A host of factors may be relevant in 
this determination, including "promises or other inducements, 
conduct of the defendant, the defendant's age, education, 
intelligence and emotional stability, experience with and in the 
criminal justice system, physical and mental condition, the 
initiator of the discussion of a deal or leniency (whether the 
defendant or the police), and the details of the interrogation, 
including the recitation of Miranda warnings."  Commonwealth v. 
20 
 
 
Tolan, 453 Mass. 634, 642 (2009), quoting Commonwealth v. 
Mandile, 397 Mass. 410, 413 (1986). 
 
Here, in concluding that all of the defendant's statements 
were involuntary, the motion judge appears to have considered 
only the officers' failure to provide Miranda warnings from the 
outset of their first interview with the defendant.  No other 
basis for her conclusion is apparent in her sparse findings.7  
Even assuming that the absence of Miranda warnings alone would 
render these statements involuntary, we conclude that Miranda 
warnings were not required when officers spoke to the defendant 
at his apartment. 
 
The defendant has not met his burden of setting forth 
evidence to call into question the voluntariness of those 
statements.  There is no indication that police officers 
employed coercion or deception to elicit any of his statements.  
To the contrary, the defendant was forthcoming and offered 
statements without prodding from the officers.  Nor was this 
cooperation clearly a result of a complete lack of familiarity 
with the criminal justice system; as the judge found, police 
previously had recovered a skull from the defendant that had 
been removed from a Hartford cemetery.  Based on the judge's 
                                                          
 
 
7 After discussing the relevant standard, the motion judge 
concluded, "Hence, the questioning of [the defendant] was a 
custodial interrogation.  And Miranda was required but not 
provided.  And [the defendant's] statement was not voluntary." 
21 
 
 
factual findings, there is no indication that the defendant's 
statements at the apartment were anything but the product of his 
own free will and rational intellect. 
 
Without evidence tending to show that these statements were 
involuntary, the statements should not have been suppressed on 
this ground.  Given the absence of any findings about the 
voluntariness of similar statements at the police station, the 
motion to suppress should not have been allowed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Order allowing motion 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  to suppress reversed.