Title: Perrier v. Commonwealth

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-12925 
 
JOSHUA PERRIER  vs.  COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     October 4, 2021. – January 25, 2022. 
 
Present:  Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt, & Georges, 
JJ. 
 
 
Motor Vehicle, Operating under the influence.  Practice, 
Criminal, Argument by prosecutor, New trial, Double 
jeopardy.  Constitutional Law, Double jeopardy. 
 
 
 
Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for 
the county of Suffolk on February 28, 2020. 
 
The case was heard by Budd, J. 
 
 
Nicholas Matteson for the petitioner. 
Thomas H. Townsend, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
CYPHER, J.  The defendant, Joshua Perrier,1 was tried before 
a jury on a charge of operating a motor vehicle while under the 
influence of alcohol.  During closing arguments, and again after 
 
 
1 Although Perrier commenced this action by filing a 
petition in the county court, for convenience, we refer to him 
as "the defendant." 
 
2 
the jury returned a guilty verdict, the defendant moved for a 
mistrial on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct.  The judge 
denied the motion for a mistrial but granted the defendant's 
motion, in the alternative, for a new trial.  After the judge 
denied the defendant's subsequent motion to dismiss the charge 
on double jeopardy grounds, the defendant petitioned a single 
justice of this court for relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3.  He 
appeals from the single justice's denial of his petition to the 
full court. 
 
Now on appeal, the defendant asks that we adopt under State 
law an expansion of the Federal double jeopardy principles of 
Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667 (1982), thereby overruling our 
decision in Donavan v. Commonwealth, 426 Mass. 13 (1997).  
Specifically, he asks us to include within the double jeopardy 
principles misconduct that a prosecutor knew or should have 
known would require a new trial, regardless of whether a 
defendant successfully moves for a mistrial.  We decline to 
reconsider our holding in Donavan.  We thus affirm the single 
justice. 
 
Factual background.  The defendant, aged nineteen, was 
charged by complaint with operating a motor vehicle while under 
the influence of alcohol.  Prior to trial, the defendant filed a 
motion in limine seeking to preclude the Commonwealth from 
making references to his age.  The judge allowed the motion, 
 
3 
finding that the potential unfair prejudice of the evidence 
substantially outweighed its relevance. 
 
During her closing argument, the prosecutor twice 
referenced the defendant's youth.  The prosecutor argued that 
the jury could find that he was operating a motor vehicle while 
under the influence even if he was not driving erratically.  The 
prosecutor told the jury, "You can have reduced judgment at the 
same time that you have the reflexes -- especially someone who's 
young, [whose] reflexes might be at their peak -- to drive the 
car."  The prosecutor again referenced the defendant's youth, 
proposing a reason why he told police he had not been drinking 
the night in question.  The prosecutor asked the jury, "Why do 
you think he might've said no while he was driving that car?  I 
mean, I don't know if -- you know, probably -- maybe he's young 
-- maybe he was too young." 
 
After this second reference to his age, the defendant 
objected.  At sidebar, the prosecutor explained that she 
believed she was permitted to draw inferences from the 
appearance of the defendant.  When the judge told her, "I said 
that [was] prejudicial," the prosecutor responded, "As to . . . 
the testimony.  This is argument." The defendant then moved for 
a mistrial, which was denied. 
 
Later during her closing argument, the prosecutor asked the 
jury to consider a scenario in which an animal or another driver 
 
4 
had been on the road with the defendant.  The defendant objected 
to the Commonwealth's appeal to sympathy and asked for a 
limiting instruction.  The judge instructed the jury to 
disregard appeals to sympathy in the parties' closing arguments. 
 
Ultimately the defendant was convicted of operating a motor 
vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.  He orally moved 
for a "judgment . . . staying the verdict" based on the 
Commonwealth's references to his age.  The judge asked that the 
defendant file a motion requesting the appropriate relief and 
stayed the sentence pending the anticipated motion.  The 
defendant thereafter filed a motion to reconsider his earlier 
request for a mistrial with prejudice, citing the Commonwealth's 
failure to abide by the motion in limine ruling and its appeal 
to juror sympathy.  In the alternative, the defendant requested 
a new trial. 
 
In its response to the defendant's motion, the Commonwealth 
explained that the prosecutor misunderstood the judge's ruling 
on the motion in limine.  According to the Commonwealth, the 
prosecutor interpreted the ruling specifically to exclude 
testimony of the defendant's age of nineteen.  The Commonwealth 
provided to the judge the prosecutor's copy of the motion, on 
which she allegedly wrote, "[A]llowed, as to eliciting testimony 
of the defendant's age of [nineteen]."  The judge denied the 
motion for a mistrial, crediting the Commonwealth's explanation 
 
5 
of the prosecutor's misunderstanding and finding that her 
actions did not "constitute deliberate, intentional and/or 
egregious prosecutorial misconduct sufficient to give rise to 
presumptive prejudice."  The judge nonetheless allowed the 
defendant's motion for a new trial. 
 
The defendant subsequently filed a motion to dismiss, 
arguing that double jeopardy precluded his retrial.  The judge 
denied his motion, holding that double jeopardy did not bar 
retrial in the event of "unintentional prosecutorial mistakes," 
citing Donavan, 426 Mass. at 16. 
 
The defendant petitioned for review by a single justice 
under G. L. c. 211, § 3.  The petition was denied on the basis 
that the double jeopardy claim lacked sufficient merit to 
warrant an interlocutory appeal, and the defendant appealed to 
the full court pursuant to S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as amended, 434 
Mass. 1301 (2001). 
 
Discussion.  Relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3, "is 
extraordinary and will be exercised only in the most exceptional 
circumstances."  Matthews v. Appeals Court, 444 Mass. 1007, 1008 
(2005), quoting Campiti v. Commonwealth, 417 Mass. 454, 455 
(1994).  Accordingly, we review the single justice's decision 
for abuse of discretion or clear error of law.  Matthews, supra.  
The single justice determined that the defendant did not present 
a double jeopardy claim of substantial merit sufficient to 
 
6 
warrant an interlocutory appeal from the denial of his motion to 
dismiss.  We hold that this was neither an abuse of the single 
justice's discretion nor a clear error of law, and we therefore 
affirm her decision. 
 
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 
applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment to the 
United States Constitution, protects an individual defendant 
from multiple prosecutions for the same offense.2  Kennedy, 456 
U.S. at 671 & n.3.  Massachusetts provides similar protections 
under State statute and common law.  See Marshall v. 
Commonwealth, 463 Mass. 529, 534 (2012); G. L. c. 263, § 7.  The 
Federal and State principles of double jeopardy protect 
defendants from being subjected to "embarrassment, expense and 
ordeal and compelling [them] to live in a continuing state of 
anxiety and insecurity."  Donavan, 426 Mass. at 15, quoting 
Commonwealth v. Andrews, 403 Mass. 441, 447 (1988).  Double 
jeopardy principles further allow defendants to have their trial 
heard by a "particular tribunal."  Kennedy, supra at 672, 
quoting Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 689 (1949). 
 
2 While not at issue in the defendant's case, double 
jeopardy principles also prohibit "multiple punishments for the 
same offense."  Commonwealth v. Traylor, 472 Mass. 260, 267 
(2015), quoting Commonwealth v. Crawford, 430 Mass. 683, 686 
(2000). 
 
7 
 
The protection against double jeopardy does not, however, 
ensure an error-free trial.  Donavan, 426 Mass. at 15.  For "it 
[would] be a rare trial of any complexity in which some 
proffered evidence by the prosecutor . . . [would] not be found 
objectionable by the trial court."  Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 674-
675.  Accordingly, these principles do not bar retrial of a 
defendant in all instances.  Thames v. Commonwealth, 365 Mass. 
477, 479 (1974).  For example, a defendant may be retried if the 
jury are unable to reach an agreement and are discharged.3  Id.  
Double jeopardy principles recognize that while defendants have 
a "legitimate interest in protection from unfair prosecution by 
 
3 When the jury cannot reach a verdict, a mistrial may be 
declared due to "manifest necessity," and the defendant may be 
retried.  Choy v. Commonwealth, 456 Mass. 146, 149, cert. 
denied, 562 U.S. 986 (2010), quoting Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 672.  
"There is, however, an exception to the rule that a defendant 
can be retried after a mistrial resulting from a jury's failure 
to reach a verdict when the evidence presented in the first 
trial was insufficient to sustain a conviction.  In such cases, 
the defendant is entitled to a judgment directing that the 
indictment be dismissed."  Choy, supra at 149-150, citing Berry 
v. Commonwealth, 393 Mass. 793, 794 (1985).  In reviewing the 
sufficiency of the evidence, the court must determine whether, 
"after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 
prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the 
essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt."  
Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass 671, 677 (1979), quoting 
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979).  "If the evidence 
admitted at the [first] trial was sufficient to send the case to 
the jury, but is insufficient to send the case to the jury if 
all improperly admitted evidence is disregarded, double jeopardy 
principles nevertheless do not bar a retrial."  Kater v. 
Commonwealth, 421 Mass. 17, 18 (1995), citing Lockhart v. 
Nelson, 488 U.S. 33, 40-41 (1988). 
 
8 
the State," the Commonwealth has a coexisting interest in 
pursuing prosecutions of those who are guilty.  Donavan, supra.  
Dismissal of an indictment based on double jeopardy thus is 
considered a "drastic remedy."  Id. at 15-16, quoting 
Commonwealth v. Cinelli, 389 Mass. 197, 210, cert. denied, 464 
U.S. 860 (1983). 
 
When a defendant moves for a mistrial, the right to be 
heard by the first jury empanelled for trial is forfeited.  
Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 672-673, 676.  The protections against 
double jeopardy, therefore, ordinarily are not implicated in 
such circumstances.  See id. at 673.  Massachusetts follows the 
United States Supreme Court's holding in Kennedy, which 
establishes a narrow rule requiring dismissal on double jeopardy 
grounds following a defendant's motion for mistrial.  Id. at 
676.  Donavan, 426 Mass. at 15.  Under the Kennedy-Donavan rule, 
retrial will be barred only where two predicates are met:  (1) a 
defendant successfully moves for a mistrial; and (2) the first 
trial contains prosecutorial misconduct intended to goad or 
provoke a defendant into moving for the mistrial.  Kennedy, 
supra.  Donavan, supra at 14-15. 
 
The Kennedy-Donavan rule recognizes that a defendant's 
right to be heard by the first empanelled jury "would be a 
hollow shell" without protection from conduct designed to force 
a defendant to forgo that jury by moving for a mistrial.  
 
9 
Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 673.  Prosecutorial misconduct absent a 
specific intent to goad the defendant into a mistrial does not 
bar retrial, however, because it does not wrest from the 
defendant control over such a decision.  Id. at 676.  The 
Kennedy-Donavan rule is, therefore, a narrow rule. 
 
In Donavan, we declined to expand the Kennedy rule under 
our State common law to allow dismissal of an indictment for 
"unintentional prosecutorial mistakes."  Donavan, 426 Mass. at 
16.  We asserted that "[w]e remain[ed] satisfied with the 
current rule which directs the dismissal of indictments on 
double jeopardy grounds only in instances of intentional 
prosecutorial misconduct calculated to provoke a defendant into 
moving for a mistrial" (emphasis added).  Id. 
 
The defendant nonetheless asks us to reconsider Donavan, 
extending double jeopardy protections to situations in which 
there was neither a successful motion for mistrial nor 
prosecutorial intent to provoke a mistrial.4  He argues that the 
Kennedy-Donavan rule is not sufficiently protective of a 
 
 
4 The defendant incorrectly claims that we previously have 
recognized a bar to retrial absent prosecutorial misconduct 
intended to provoke the defendant into a mistrial.  He relies on 
Commonwealth v. Murchison, 392 Mass. 273, 276 (1984), which 
preceded Donavan.  We since have held unequivocally that double 
jeopardy is only implicated in cases where a prosecutor intended 
to provoke the defendant into moving for a mistrial.  Donavan, 
426 Mass. at 14-15.  The defendant's reliance on Murchison, 
therefore, is misplaced. 
 
10 
criminal defendant and invites us to expand the rule under our 
common law, as other jurisdictions have done.5  Specifically, the 
defendant proposes that double jeopardy principles apply "where 
a prosecutor either [1] engaged in misconduct with the intent to 
goad the defendant into requesting a mistrial or [2] engaged in 
misconduct that results in [a] mistrial, order [for a] new 
 
 
5 See, e.g., Pool v. Superior Court, 139 Ariz. 98, 108-109 
(1984) (barring retrial for misconduct that "is not merely the 
result of legal error, negligence, mistake, or insignificant 
impropriety, but, taken as a whole, amounts to intentional 
conduct which the prosecutor knows to be improper and 
prejudicial, and which he [or she] pursues for any improper 
purpose with indifference to a significant resulting danger of 
mistrial or reversal" [footnote omitted]); People v. Batts, 30 
Cal. 4th 660, 666 (2003), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1185 (2004) 
(barring retrial "when the prosecution, believing [in view of 
events that unfold during trial] that a defendant is likely to 
secure an acquittal at that trial, knowingly and intentionally 
commits misconduct in order to thwart such an acquittal"); 
People v. Dawson, 154 Mich. App. 260, 272-273 (1986), aff'd on 
other grounds, 431 Mich. 234 (1988) (applying Pool test); Thomas 
v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 133 Nev. 468, 475 (2017) 
(applying Pool test); State v. Breit, 122 N.M. 655, 666 (1996) 
(barring retrial where prosecutor "knows that the conduct is 
improper and prejudicial, and if the [prosecutor] either intends 
to provoke a mistrial or acts in willful disregard of the 
resulting mistrial, retrial, or reversal"); State v. Kennedy, 
295 Or. 260, 276 (1983) (on remand from United States Supreme 
Court, holding that Oregon Constitution bars retrial "if the 
official knows that the conduct is improper and prejudicial and 
either intends or is indifferent to the resulting mistrial or 
reversal"); Commonwealth v. Johnson, 231 A.3d 807, 826 (Pa. 
2020) (barring retrial for prosecutorial misconduct that "is 
undertaken recklessly, that is, with a conscious disregard for a 
substantial risk that such will be the result").  Notably, all 
these cases rely on their own State constitutions in 
articulating double jeopardy principles that provide greater 
protections than the Kennedy rule.  Our constitution, however, 
does not contain an analogous provision providing an independent 
protection against double jeopardy. 
 
11 
trial, or reversal; which had the effect of depriving a 
defendant of [the] reasonable likelihood of acquittal; and where 
the prosecutor knew or reasonably should have known from all of 
the facts and circumstances that his or her conduct would 
require [a] new trial." 
 
Without deciding whether to expand our common-law double 
jeopardy principles to include other kinds of prosecutorial 
error, we note that the defendant would not find relief under 
the common-law principles from other States, nor under his own 
rule.  None of these standards extends double jeopardy 
protections to purely unintentional prosecutorial mistakes, as 
the judge found occurred here.  We remain, as stated in Donavan, 
satisfied that unintentional mistakes do not preclude retrial.6 
 
Whether the prosecutor acted with intent to goad the 
defendant into a mistrial is a question of fact.  Andrews, 403 
Mass. at 448.  The trial judge is "in the best position to see 
 
6 Because we decline to expand our double jeopardy 
principles to unintentional mistakes, as occurred here, we do 
not address the defendant's argument that double jeopardy 
principles should apply in the absence of a successful motion 
for mistrial.  We simply note that the protection against double 
jeopardy is not intended to apply in cases like the defendant's.  
Although the defendant's trial contained errors made by the 
Commonwealth, double jeopardy principles do not ensure an error-
free trial.  See Donavan, 426 Mass. at 15.  The defendant 
received a trial in front of his first-empanelled jury, and the 
Commonwealth did not deprive him of that choice.  The 
appropriate remedy for the Commonwealth's errors, an order for a 
new trial, duly was applied in the defendant's case.  See Mass. 
R. Crim. P. 30 (b), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001). 
 
12 
and evaluate the circumstances."  Commonwealth v. Merry, 453 
Mass. 653, 665 (2009).  Accordingly, we give deference to the 
trial judge's findings and review for clear error.  Commonwealth 
v. Cousin, 449 Mass. 809, 820 (2007), cert. denied, 553 U.S. 
1007 (2008).  Here, the judge found that the prosecutor's 
actions did not "constitute deliberate, intentional and/or 
egregious prosecutorial misconduct sufficient to give rise to 
presumptive prejudice."  In denying the defendant's mistrial 
motion, the judge credited the Commonwealth's contention that 
the prosecutor's actions were based on a misunderstanding of his 
ruling.  Moreover, in denying the defendant's motion to dismiss, 
the judge characterized the prosecutor's actions as 
"unintentional prosecutorial mistakes." 
 
Review of the facts leads us to determine that the judge 
did not commit clear error in finding that the prosecutor's 
actions were unintentional mistakes.  Nor did the judge err in 
crediting the Commonwealth's assertion that the prosecutor's 
actions were based on a misunderstanding of the judge's ruling.  
We note that the Commonwealth presented notes, allegedly 
contemporaneous, consistent with the prosecutor's claimed 
misunderstanding.  These notes properly could be considered in 
conjunction with the prosecutor's comments to the judge at 
sidebar, including her response, "As to . . . the testimony.  
This is argument."  Additionally, after the defendant objected, 
 
13 
the prosecutor did not again mention the defendant's youth.  
These circumstances support the judge's findings. 
 
The prosecutor's alleged appeal to sympathy likewise does 
not display an intent to provoke the defendant into moving for a 
mistrial.  After the defendant's objection, the prosecutor did 
not renew her argument.  While the prosecutor contested whether 
her argument could be characterized as an appeal to juror 
sympathy, she did not object to the judge's limiting 
instructions.  This does not evince an intent by the prosecutor 
to provoke the defendant.  Rather, we hold that the judge did 
not err in determining that the prosecutor's errors were 
unintentional.  We thus conclude that based on the record, 
neither predicate necessary to implicate double jeopardy under 
the Kennedy-Donavan rule was satisfied. 
 
For the same reasons, we conclude that there is no support 
for the suggestion that the prosecutor acted knowingly, 
recklessly, or indifferently, the mental states raised by the 
defendant.  The prosecutor misunderstood the judge's rulings and 
refrained from making further errors as soon as she was made 
aware of her misunderstanding.  We do not believe the prosecutor 
should have known that her actions would require a new trial, or 
that she ignored the substantial risk that such result would 
occur.  Nor can we say that a reasonable person in similar 
circumstances would understand such actions to create a 
 
14 
substantial risk of retrial.  The judge found that the 
prosecutor's actions merely were mistakes:  as we indicated in 
Donavan, 426 Mass. at 15, "inadvertence" is not enough to 
implicate double jeopardy.  Nor is such error "egregious," id. 
at 15 n.2, enough to warrant the "drastic remedy" of dismissal, 
id. at 15-16, quoting Cinelli, 389 Mass. at 210.  See 
Commonwealth v. Cronk, 396 Mass. 194, 199 (1985).  Were we to 
conclude otherwise, it would be a "rare trial" in which 
prosecutorial mistakes giving rise to a new trial did not result 
in dismissal.  See Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 674-675. 
 
We thus hold that the defendant does not present a double 
jeopardy claim warranting the extraordinary relief of G. L. 
c. 211, § 3.  The single justice did not abuse her discretion or 
commit a clear error of law in determining that the denial of 
the defendant's motion to dismiss cannot be appealed until after 
trial. 
 
We reserve for another day the question whether the 
Kennedy-Donavan rule sufficiently protects defendants against 
double jeopardy under different circumstances. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed.