Title: Commonwealth v. Rosario

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-12115 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  VICTOR ROSARIO. 
 
 
 
Middlesex.     November 8, 2016. - May 11, 2017. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Botsford, Hines, Gaziano, Lowy, & Budd, 
JJ.1 
 
 
Burning a Dwelling House.  Homicide.  Fire.  Constitutional Law, 
Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement.  
Evidence, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of 
statement.  Practice, Criminal, New trial, Admissions and 
confessions, Voluntariness of statement. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on June 30, 1982. 
 
 
A motion for a new trial, filed on October 19, 2012, was 
heard by Kathe M. Tuttman, J. 
 
 
The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for 
direct appellate review. 
 
 
 
Jessica Langsam, Assistant District Attorney (Thomas F. 
O'Reilly, Assistant District Attorney, also present) for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
Lisa M. Kavanaugh, Committee for Public Counsel Services 
(Andrea Petersen also present) for the defendant. 
                     
 
1 Justice Botsford participated in the deliberation on this 
case prior to her retirement. 
2 
 
 
 
M. Chris Fabricant, Karen Newirth, James C. Dugan, Vincent 
P. Iannece, Lara S. Kasten, & Kathryn J. Ranieri, of New York, 
Stephanie Roberts Hartung, & Sharon L. Beckman, for New England 
Innocence Project and others, amici curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
 
 
BUDD, J.  The defendant, Victor Rosario, was convicted in 
1983 of one count of arson in a dwelling house and eight counts 
of murder in the second degree; all the charges stem from a fire 
that occurred in 1982.  In 2012, the defendant filed the motion 
for a new trial at issue here,  arguing principally that newly 
discovered evidence regarding fire science and the conditions 
under which he confessed to the crime warranted a new trial.  
Following an evidentiary hearing, a Superior Court judge who was 
not the trial judge allowed the motion, ruling that the 
defendant had presented newly discovered evidence, which cast 
real doubt on the justice of his convictions.  The Commonwealth 
appealed.  We allowed the defendant's application for direct 
appellate review, and we affirm the order allowing the 
defendant's motion for a new trial, but on different grounds.2 
 
Background.  1.  Evidence presented at trial.  We summarize 
relevant evidence introduced at trial.  The fire started on the 
first floor of a multi-unit apartment building in Lowell, and 
was accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.  The first 
                     
 
2 We acknowledge the amicus brief of the New England 
Innocence Project, the Innocence Project, Inc., and the Boston 
College Innocence Program. 
3 
 
 
telephone call to 911 was placed shortly after 1 A.M. on March 
5, 1982.  Police officers arrived, minutes later, to find the 
building "fully engulfed in flames."  It took firefighters 
approximately one hour to get the fire under control.  They 
recovered eight bodies from the building, all victims of the 
fire. 
 
Because of the rapid escalation of the fire and the 
associated deaths, the arson unit was called to the scene.  
Investigators found that the heaviest burning and charring was 
concentrated in the front, right, and left sides of the exterior 
and first-floor interior of the building.  Based on the burn 
patterns in the front hallway, living room, and kitchen, 
investigators believed that the fire had been concentrated along 
the floor and baseboards.  Although no wicks or flammable 
liquids were detected in the apartment, the investigators 
believed that the burn marks were consistent with flammable 
liquids with points of origin being the front hall and kitchen.  
Thus, they concluded that the fire was not accidental and could 
have been started by multiple incendiary devices, such as 
"Molotov cocktails."3 
                     
 
3 A "Molotov cocktail" is a breakable container with a wick 
filled with a flammable liquid.  It is used by lighting the wick 
and throwing the container against a hard surface so that it 
breaks, igniting the fluid inside the bottle, and starting a 
fire. 
4 
 
 
 
There were several witnesses to the fire.  One witness had 
seen three men standing in front of the building minutes before 
the fire; he said that he heard the sound of breaking glass and 
then saw a man with his arm raised.4  A woman who lived across 
the street stated that the defendant used drugs at her apartment 
that night and that she saw him breaking windows after she 
learned of the fire.  Red Cross workers treated the defendant 
for a cut on his hand at the scene and sent him to the hospital. 
 
This evidence led investigators to the defendant, who was 
interrogated by Lowell police officers at the fire department 
headquarters during the night of March 6 and into March 7.  The 
defendant, whose first language was Spanish, was provided with a 
civilian interpreter.5  Although the defendant appeared calm and 
responsive when he arrived at approximately 11 P.M., soon after 
                     
 
4 When this witness was asked to make an identification at 
the police station, he described one of the men as Puerto Rican 
and approximately five feet, five or six inches tall with a thin 
mustache, but he did not pick the defendant out of a 
photographic array.  After the defendant's photograph appeared 
in the newspaper the witness told police that he recognized the 
defendant as one of the three men who had been on the street 
before the fire. 
 
 
5 The interpreter, who was an active leader in the Lowell 
Hispanic community at the time, had previously assisted the 
Lowell police as an interpreter in at least one other 
interrogation in relation to another suspicious fire that had 
occurred in the same building.  Some months after the 
interrogation, before the defendant's trial in early 1983, the 
interpreter became a deputy sheriff for Middlesex County at the 
Billerica house of correction. 
5 
 
 
that he indicated that he was beginning to hear voices, and his 
mental state deteriorated over the course of the night.  A few 
hours into the interrogation, after the defendant had made two 
statements about the fire, one of the officers told the 
defendant that they had "certain information" and wanted "to 
know if he was part of it."  The defendant broke down, sobbing 
and praying on the floor.  The breakdown lasted ten to twenty 
minutes, but the defendant later appeared to recover. 
 
The questioning resulted in three statements prepared by 
the police interrogators and signed by the defendant.  In the 
first, signed at approximately 12:15 A.M., the defendant 
admitted to being at the scene of the fire and stated he broke a 
window to help rescue children from the building.  Hours later, 
he signed a second statement, admitting to being at the scene as 
a "look out" for two other men, one of whom threw a Molotov 
cocktail through a window in the building.  Finally, toward the 
end of the questioning, the defendant signed a final statement 
indicating that he and the other two men threw Molotov cocktails 
into the building, starting the fire.  The statement also said 
that before they had left for a bar that evening, he watched the 
two other men make three Molotov cocktails in the basement of 
6 
 
 
his house;6 they planned to start the fire because one of the men 
"wanted to get [one of the victims] over drugs."  At 
approximately 6:30 A.M., the defendant was arrested after 
signing the final statement. 
 
Following his booking, the defendant descended into total 
incoherence.  He repeatedly said that he was "the son of God," 
believed that the back of his head had been cut off, and did not 
recognize his girl friend when she came to visit him.  He 
eventually was transferred to the house of correction in 
Billerica for a psychiatric examination.  State psychiatrists 
there and at Bridgewater State Hospital (hospital) diagnosed the 
defendant as psychotic.  He was treated at the hospital and 
eventually recovered.  His symptoms never recurred, and the 
defendant was deemed competent to stand trial. 
 
The defense theory of the case at trial was that the 
defendant was at the scene of the fire because he and his 
friends were walking home from a bar and stopped by a house 
close to the fire to purchase drugs.  The defendant, who 
testified, told the jury that he hurt his hand when he broke a 
window in his attempt to rescue children from the flames.  Both 
                     
 
6 When the police searched the common basement of the 
defendant's apartment building, they found a gasoline can and a 
paint can with a beer bottle and other trash inside.  At an 
apartment belonging to one of the other men, the police found a 
can of "Red Devil" paint remover, which had been purchased days 
before the fire. 
7 
 
 
in a motion to suppress and at trial, the defense relied on the 
diagnosis of psychosis to argue that the defendant's statements 
during the interrogation were involuntary.  The defendant 
testified that he did not remember making any of the statements 
attributed to him and that he had never heard of a Molotov 
cocktail before the interrogation.  As the voluntariness of his 
confession was at issue throughout the trial, the trial judge 
instructed the jury on the humane practice rule.7  During their 
deliberations, the jury requested, but were not provided, 
transcripts of the doctors' testimony, and the doctors' reports 
were not admitted into evidence.  The jury convicted the 
defendant of arson and eight counts of murder in the second 
degree. 
 
2.  The motion for new trial.  In 2012, the defendant filed 
his motion for a new trial, citing newly discovered evidence.  
The motion judge conducted an evidentiary hearing over the 
                     
 
7 The humane practice rule requires that the Commonwealth 
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement was voluntary 
before the jury may consider it.  See Commonwealth v. Tavares, 
385 Mass. 140, 152, cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1137 (1982).  If the 
voluntariness of the statement is contested, the judge must also 
find that it was proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the 
statement was voluntary.  Id.  The judge instructed the jury to 
examine the defendant's statements made during the interrogation 
in order to determine whether they were "the product of 
coercion, threats, physical or psychological intimidation, which 
had the result of overriding or overbearing the free will of the 
defendant." 
8 
 
 
course of six days in 2014.  She credited the following evidence 
introduced at the hearing. 
 
a.  The interrogation.  According to the affidavit of the  
interpreter who had assisted the police at the time the 
defendant was interrogated in 1982,8 despite the written 
statements, the defendant had actually neither stated that he 
acted as a lookout, nor that he threw a Molotov cocktail into 
the building.  Instead, the officers themselves suggested these 
details during the interrogation and then included them in the 
written statements that the defendant signed.  Although the 
first and second statements were interpreted from English into 
Spanish before the defendant signed them, the third statement, 
the only one in which he admitted to throwing a Molotov cocktail 
into the house, was not.  The interpreter also indicated that 
the defendant had been incoherent at the time he signed the 
second and third statements, and that even before his breakdown, 
the defendant had referred constantly to being possessed by the 
devil and to being the son of God.  He also told the interpreter 
                     
 
8 By 2014, the interpreter had moved to Puerto Rico.  
Although he initially agreed to travel to Massachusetts to 
testify at the evidentiary hearing, he later refused to appear 
voluntarily.  Insofar as relevant here, as the interpreter could 
not be compelled to appear, the motion judge allowed defense 
counsel to introduce into evidence a redacted version of the 
interpreter's affidavit, signed in 2009, for the purposes of 
this most recent new trial motion. 
9 
 
 
that he had injected heroin before coming to the station for the 
interrogation. 
 
The defendant's two psychiatric experts at the new trial 
motion hearing testified that rather than psychosis, the 
defendant suffered from delirium tremens (DTs) at the time of 
his confession.  DTs, also known as alcohol withdrawal delirium, 
begins when a person who drinks a significant amount of alcohol 
abruptly reduces his alcohol intake.  It is a neurologic, 
neurocognitive disorder that disrupts neurotransmitters in the 
brain.  The condition is marked by derangement of mental 
processes resulting in disorientation, confusion, behavioral 
disturbances and hallucinations.  It leaves one highly 
suggestible, unable to process information reliably,  and unable 
to make rational decisions. 
 
The symptoms of the condition worsen over the course of 
five days.  Within twelve hours, the person may be confused or 
agitated but knows where he is and who he is.  By the second day 
of withdrawal, the person may experience auditory 
hallucinations, as well as a sense of persecution.  The most 
characteristic symptoms of DTs develop on the third day, when 
the person may experience visual, tactile, olfactory, and 
auditory hallucinations.  From the third day onward, the person 
becomes extremely disoriented and agitated, and other functions 
of the nervous system start to break down.  The hallucinations 
10 
 
 
peak at day three or day four.  DTs is an acute syndrome and 
subsides as the person recovers from alcohol withdrawal, 
typically beginning at around days five, six, and seven. 
 
The defense introduced evidence that the defendant was 
particularly prone to DTs due to a prior serious head injury and 
a history of heavy drug and alcohol abuse:  he drank 
approximately a case of beer a day and hard liquor, often 
beginning at about 9:00 A.M.  He had been drinking more heavily 
than usual in the days prior to the fire, but following the 
fire, he dramatically reduced his intake.  His girl friend's son 
and others saw him behaving in extreme, unusual ways they had 
never seen before.  As a result, the defense experts opined that 
as the defendant arrived at the police station for the 
interview, forty-six hours after the fire, he was finishing day 
two of his withdrawal and entering day three, and he began to 
experience full-blown symptoms of DTs.  He was very suggestible 
at this time and could not make rational decisions or process 
information reliably. 
The defense experts also testified to their opinions 
concerning why the previous psychiatrists had diagnosed the 
defendant incorrectly.  They hypothesized that because the 
previous psychiatrists did not examine him when his symptoms 
were most aligned with delirium, by the time the defendant was 
diagnosed, eight or more days after the fire, his alcohol 
11 
 
 
withdrawal had progressed such that the residual symptoms of DTs 
might present as a psychotic disorder.  One of the experts 
further hypothesized that the language barrier made it difficult 
to get a complete history, including the defendant’s history of 
alcohol abuse. 
 
b.  The fire science.  The defendant additionally presented 
two fire science experts who testified that more recent fire 
science research, some of which was not completed until 2005, 
had led to new protocols for evaluating the source of a fire.  
Applying these protocols to the fire in question, the experts 
both determined that, rather than being arson started with 
Molotov cocktails at multiple locations, the forensic evidence 
was equally susceptible to an interpretation that the fire was 
accidental, involved no flammable liquids, and had a single 
point of origin.  The experts explained that "flashover" likely 
took place:  flashover is a phenomenon that occurs when the fire 
goes from being controlled by fuel to being controlled by the 
oxygen available in the room depending upon the ventilation.  
Once flashover occurs, there is "full room involvement," where 
the intensity of the fire -- and, as a result, the burn patterns 
-- may vary depending upon the areas of ventilation.  Once this 
happens, the point of a fire's origin cannot be accurately 
identified because the fire causes the most damage in areas 
where there is more oxygen available, generally near doors and 
12 
 
 
windows.  They further explained that because irregular curved 
or pool-shaped patterns are common in postflashover conditions 
and may result from the effects of hot gases, smoldering debris 
and melted plastics, the presence of flammable liquids should be 
confirmed by laboratory analysis and should not be based on 
appearance alone. 
The original fire investigators believed that the fire was 
arson because there were two apparently separate areas of 
heavier damage that did not appear to have communicated with one 
another.  However, the defendant's experts explained that the 
fire likely traveled from the living room into the hallway and 
kitchen because there was more oxygen in those areas.  One of 
the defense experts also opined that one of the original 
investigators' conclusions, i.e., that a burn pattern observed 
near the rear kitchen door was consistent with flammable liquid 
flowing under the door, was a misconception about fire science 
because experts now know that hot gases in one room can cause 
burning on the other side of a closed door.  Further, the 
blistering effect that was thought to be consistent with the use 
of flammable liquid is now known to be found in many types of 
fires, whether or not flammable liquids were present. 
Ultimately, the defense experts opined that the fire was 
consistent with an accidental fire originating in the living 
13 
 
 
room or elsewhere, and spreading from there, but that the cause 
was undetermined. 
3.  The motion judge's rulings of law.  The motion judge 
granted the defendant's motion for a new trial based on the 
psychiatric experts' diagnosis of DTs.  She concluded that the 
determination that the defendant had been suffering from DTs was 
newly discovered, reasoning that it could not have been 
uncovered by defense counsel's due diligence by the time of 
trial, and that it cast real doubt on the justice of the 
conviction, specifically the voluntariness of the defendant's 
confession, especially when combined with the coercive 
interrogation techniques used by the police.9  See, e.g., 
Commonwealth v. Cowels, 470 Mass. 607, 616-617 (2015). 
She also determined that the fire science evidence was 
newly discovered because it did not exist at the time of trial 
and differed significantly from the principles relied upon at 
that time.  She concluded, however, that, by itself, the new 
science evidence did not cast real doubt on the justice of the 
                     
 
9 The motion judge also found that information about the 
police officers' interrogation practices was newly discovered, 
but that it alone would not warrant a new trial. 
 
14 
 
 
defendant's conviction.  See Commonwealth v. Grace, 397 Mass. 
303, 306 (1986).10 
The motion judge alternatively ruled that the DTs diagnosis 
entitled the defendant to a new trial under a substantial risk 
of a miscarriage of justice analysis.  See Mass. R. Crim. P. 30 
(b), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001).  See also 
Commonwealth v. Randolph, 438 Mass. 290, 294 (2002).  She 
concluded that the fact that the defendant was experiencing DTs 
during the interrogation, combined with testimony about the 
interrogation techniques that were used, could lead a reasonable 
fact finder to conclude that the defendant's statements were 
involuntary.  In her view, this would have been a real factor in 
the jury's deliberations, especially in combination with the 
newly discovered fire science evidence, and provided a separate 
ground for a new trial. 
                     
 
10 The judge explained that if a jury found that the 
defendant's statement that he threw a Molotov cocktail through 
the window was voluntary, then the Commonwealth's theory 
regarding arson would have been corroborated, so the new fire 
science alone would not suffice.  Although the defendant's 
statement may have corroborated the arson theory, we note that, 
on the other hand, the new fire science evidence may have caused 
the jury to question whether the fire was intentionally set and, 
therefore, whether the statement itself was corroborated.  See 
Commonwealth v. DiGiambattista, 442 Mass. 423, 430 (2004) (we 
require "corroboration that the underlying crime was in fact 
committed").  At any rate, the judge also recognized in a 
footnote that if the diagnosis of DTs or the questionable 
interrogation tactics undermined the voluntariness of the 
statements, the new fire science would cast further doubt on the 
justice of the conviction. 
15 
 
 
Although we do not agree that the DTs diagnosis was newly 
discovered,11 we nevertheless affirm based upon the totality of 
the judge's findings and the "confluence of factors" analysis 
developed subsequent to her decision in this case.  Commonwealth 
v. Brescia, 471 Mass. 381, 396 (2015). See Commonwealth v. 
Ellis, 475 Mass. 459, 481 (2016); Commonwealth v. Epps, 474 
Mass. 743, 767 (2016). 
Discussion.  1.  Standard of Review.  A judge "may grant a 
new trial at any time if it appears that justice may not have 
been done."  Mass. R. Crim. P. 30 (b).  "Our decisions have 
crafted a latticework of more specific standards designed to 
guide judges' determinations . . . as to whether a new trial 
should be ordered."  Brescia, 471 Mass. at 388.  Examples 
include, "a serious doubt whether the result of the trial might 
have been different had the error not been made," (citation 
omitted), Randolph, 438 Mass. at 297 (unpreserved claim of 
nonconstitutional error); evidence "would probably have been a 
real factor in the jury's deliberations," Grace, 397 Mass. at 
                     
11 Because the defendant failed to demonstrate that the DTs 
diagnosis was not an available diagnosis at the time of trial, 
it cannot be considered newly discovered.  See Commonwealth v. 
Shuman, 445 Mass. 268, 272 (2005) ("evidence does not meet the 
test for 'newly discovered' evidence [if] it was available prior 
to trial").  To the contrary, defense experts at the motion for 
new trial hearing testified that DTs was widely recognized at 
the time, and that the defendant was experiencing a "textbook" 
demonstration of DTs symptoms at the time of his confession. 
16 
 
 
305 (newly discovered evidence); the behavior of counsel "[fell] 
measurably below that . . . from an ordinary, fallible lawyer 
[and such failing] likely deprived the defendant of an otherwise 
available, substantial ground of defen[s]e,'" Commonwealth v. 
Saferian, 366 Mass. 89, 96 (1974) (ineffective assistance of 
counsel).  See generally Brescia, supra at 388-391. 
As mentioned in Brescia, 471 Mass. at 388, the principle of 
finality of convictions remains a valuable and important concept 
in our jurisprudence, see Commonwealth v. LeFave, 430 Mass. 169, 
175 (1999), as does the principle that a defendant "is entitled 
to a fair trial but not a perfect one" (citations omitted).   
Brescia, supra at 391. Nevertheless, in rare cases, in order to 
fulfill the obligation incorporated in Mass. R. Crim. P. 30 (b) 
to determine whether "justice may not have been done," a trial 
judge may need to look beyond the specific, individual reasons 
for granting a new trial to consider how a number of factors act 
in concert to cause a substantial risk of a miscarriage of 
justice and therefore warrant the granting of a new trial.  See 
Brescia, 471 Mass. at 389-390, 391 n.11.  See also Epps, 474 
Mass. at 767-768.  Where the trial judge grants the motion, the 
appellate court must determine whether the judge abused his or 
her discretion.  See Brescia, supra at 397.  See also Ellis, 475 
Mass. at 476. 
17 
 
 
 
In the Brescia case, the motion judge concluded that 
justice may not have been done where the defendant's undetected 
stroke affected his ability to testify in a coherent manner, and 
could well have damaged his credibility with the jury. 471 Mass. 
at 387.  We affirmed the order granting a new trial even though 
none of the usual reasons for doing so (e.g., constitutional 
error, newly discovered evidence, or ineffective assistance of 
counsel) were present.  Id. at 387, 396-397. Similarly in the 
Ellis case, we concluded that the motion judge did not abuse her 
discretion in granting a new trial where a combination of newly 
discovered evidence together with other evidence presented at 
trial warranted it. 475 Mass. at 481.  There, the motion judge 
had focused on a conflict of interest that was newly discovered; 
the victim in that case, a police officer, had participated in a 
corruption scheme with the detectives who investigated his 
murder.  Id. at 465-466.  The defendant also presented evidence 
showing that the investigators failed to pursue other leads.  
Id. at 469-472.  We affirmed the motion judge's conclusion that 
these two factors could have acted in concert to influence the 
jury's deliberations, reasoning that the defendant could have 
argued that the corrupt detectives' priority was concealing 
their own wrongdoing, rather than identifying the killer.  Id. 
at 478, 481. 
18 
 
 
 
This case, too, presents a situation in which a confluence 
of factors combined to create a substantial risk of a 
miscarriage of justice. 
2.  Confluence of factors.  The motion judge's analysis, 
which focuses on whether "justice may not have been done," Mass. 
R. Crim. P. 30 (b), aligns with our decisions in the Brescia, 
Epps, and Ellis cases.  She considered the unique confluence of 
events in light of the totality of the circumstances, that is, 
the irregularities in the defendant's interrogation leading to 
his confession (including the defendant's neurologic condition) 
combined with the new fire science in determining that the 
defendant is entitled to a new trial. 
a.  The interrogation.  The voluntariness of the 
defendant's statements was thoroughly argued at trial and 
considered by the jury.  However, there are substantial 
differences between psychosis and DTs that may have made a real 
difference in the jury's verdict.  Although psychosis is a 
mental disorder that does not necessarily cause cognitive 
impairment, DTs is a neurologic disorder with an underlying 
physical cause that disrupts the ability to process information 
and leaves one disoriented, confused, and highly suggestible.  
Because voluntariness was at issue, the jury were required to 
determine whether the defendant's statements were voluntary 
beyond a reasonable doubt before they were permitted to use them 
19 
 
 
in reaching their verdicts.12  See Commonwealth v. Tavares, 385 
Mass. 140, 152, cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1137 (1982).  The DTs 
diagnosis, with its underlying physical rather than 
psychological origin, could have been highly relevant to the 
jury's consideration of the voluntariness and reliability of the 
defendant's confession -- the most compelling part of the 
Commonwealth's case.13  See id. ("a defendant's statement is 
usually the key item in the proof of guilt, and certainly one of 
overpowering weight with the jury" [quotations and citation 
omitted]).  If the jury had concluded that the statements were 
                     
 
12 Indeed, it seems evident that the jury were concerned 
about the defendant's mental status insofar as they requested 
transcripts of the psychiatrists' testimony, which were not 
provided. 
 
 
13 This evidence does not fall neatly into one of the 
categories usually relied upon to argue for a new trial.  
Although the DTs diagnosis was "discoverable," and therefore not 
"newly discovered" evidence, we cannot say that defense counsel 
was ineffective for failing to discover it.  He relied upon the 
expertise of others -- three psychiatrists who examined the 
defendant while he was in custody opined that the defendant was 
psychotic at the times they examined him, one opined only that 
he was not suffering from a mental illness at the time of 
questioning, and an expert witness retained by the defense 
opined that the defendant was psychotic during the interrogation 
-- in a field in which the attorney was not himself trained.  It 
would be a high hurdle indeed to expect counsel to continue to 
search for an alternative diagnosis where he reasonably could 
not be expected to know that one existed.  See Commonwealth v. 
Buck, 64 Mass. App. Ct. 760, 764 (2005).  This is especially so 
where several different psychiatrists concluded that the 
defendant had suffered from psychosis either during the 
interrogation or after booking, even if the judge was later 
persuaded that this diagnosis was incorrect. 
20 
 
 
not made voluntarily, then the Commonwealth's case would have 
been significantly weakened. 
The defendant's condition was only one part of the problem 
with the interrogation.  The motion judge made significant 
findings regarding the circumstances surrounding the defendant's 
confession.  She credited the interpreter's sworn affidavit in 
which he stated that the police officers added their own 
accusations about the origin of the fire, e.g., that the 
defendant threw a "Molotov cocktail" into the building, into the 
statements they prepared for the defendant to sign.  This 
significant flaw was compounded by the fact the third, and most 
incriminating, statement was not interpreted into Spanish before 
the defendant signed it. 
In addition, three of the tactics used during his 
interrogation have the potential to elicit false confessions.  
See Commonwealth v. Tremblay, 460 Mass. 199, 208 (2011).  
Although not newly discovered evidence, we consider these flaws 
in evaluating whether justice requires a new trial under the 
totality of the circumstances.  See Ellis, 475 Mass. at 480-481.  
First, although the defendant said that he had stopped at the 
location because he observed the fire and wanted to help people 
escape the building, the officers falsely told the defendant 
that a witness had placed him at the scene before the fire 
began.  See note 4 supra.  Second, the officers motivated the 
21 
 
 
defendant to confess; they said that if his friends had caused 
the fire, they might blame him, and he would be left "holding 
the bag."  Third, the officers engaged in "formatting," meaning 
that they told the defendant some corroborating details, which 
the defendant then adopted as part of his confession:  that he 
acted as a lookout for his friends; that there were three points 
of origin for the fire; and that the fire was started with 
Molotov cocktails.  These details were later included in the 
written statements.  Such tactics are of particular concern 
where, as here, a suspect is already suggestible and was never 
given a translation of the last, most critical statement.  We 
note that the defendant claimed that he had never heard of a 
Molotov cocktail before the interrogation.  Until the last 
statement, he denied causing the fire and repeatedly stated that 
he had sought to save children from the burning building.  The 
fact that the defendant was suffering from DTs increased the 
possibility of a false confession. 
b.  The fire science.  At trial the defense did not 
introduce any testimony to challenge the Commonwealth's arson 
experts.  Although the new fire science evidence presented by 
the defendant at the hearing on the motion for a new trial 
certainly does not prove that the fire was accidental, it does 
provide an alternative theory as to cause (accidental, unknown 
origin) and explains that the burn patterns alone could not 
22 
 
 
prove that flammable liquids were involved.  Thus, additional 
sources of evidence were necessary for the Commonwealth to meet 
its burden of proving arson.  Had this new fire science evidence 
been available at the time of trial it might have changed the 
defense strategy.  This new evidence could have provided a basis 
for the jury to question further the defendant's confession, as 
well as the Commonwealth's evidence regarding how the fire 
developed. 
Conclusion.  The loss of eight lives in the fire in 1982 
was unquestionably tragic, and without a doubt must have weighed 
and must continue to weigh heavily on the victims' families as 
well as the community.  Nevertheless, under our Constitution and 
system of laws, every criminal defendant is entitled to a fair 
trial where, to the extent possible, justice is done. 
The DTs diagnosis, the information from the interpreter, 
and the data on coercive interrogation tactics all call into 
question whether the defendant's statements were made 
voluntarily.  The new fire science provides an alternate theory 
regarding the start and spread of the fire.  These factors taken 
together could have influenced the jury's verdict.  Although the 
evidence presented in support of the defendant's motion for a 
new trial does not necessarily mean that he is innocent, the 
judge concluded, after what was clearly a painstaking review of 
the trial record, that justice was not done.  See Ellis, 475 
23 
 
 
Mass. at 460.  We conclude that in reaching this determination, 
the judge did not abuse her discretion.  Commonwealth v. Wright, 
469 Mass. 447, 461 (2014).  As a result, we affirm her order 
granting a new trial. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.