Title: Commonwealth v. Long

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 
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SJC-11253 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  DERYCK LONG. 
 
 
 
Norfolk.     October 11, 2016. - February 24, 2017. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Hines, Gaziano, Lowy, & Budd, JJ. 
 
 
Homicide.  Constitutional Law, Assistance of counsel.  Evidence, 
Exculpatory, Wiretap, Result of illegal search.  Cellular 
Telephone.  Electronic Surveillance.  Practice, Criminal, 
Capital case, Assistance of counsel. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on March 9, 2006. 
 
 
Pretrial motions to suppress evidence were heard by Janet 
L. Sanders, J.; the cases were tried before Kenneth J. Fishman, 
J., and a motion for a new trial, filed on August 4, 2014, was 
heard by him. 
 
 
 
Robert F. Shaw, Jr., for the defendant. 
 
Pamela Alford, Assistant District Attorney (Craig F. 
Kowalski, Assistant District Attorney, also present) for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
GAZIANO, J.  A Superior Court jury found the defendant 
guilty of murder in the first degree, on a theory of deliberate 
premeditation, in the shooting death of Jamal Vaughn (victim) on 
2 
 
 
 
January 9, 2016, in Quincy.  Before us is the defendant's appeal 
from his convictions and from the denial of his motion for a new 
trial.  He claims that his trial counsel's uninformed decision 
not to introduce cell site location information (CSLI) to 
contradict the testimony of a key prosecution witness 
constituted ineffective assistance of counsel, and that it was 
error for a motion judge to deny his pretrial motion to suppress 
the testimony of the same witness because the Commonwealth had 
obtained his testimony as a result of an illegal wiretap that 
this court previously had ordered suppressed.  See Commonwealth 
v. Long, 454 Mass. 542 (2009). 
We conclude that the defendant was not deprived of the 
effective assistance of trial counsel, and that there was no 
error in the motion judge's determination that the witness's 
testimony was sufficiently attenuated from the suppressed 
wiretap evidence to dissipate the taint of illegality.  
Accordingly, we affirm the conviction and the denial of the 
motion for a new trial, and decline to exercise our authority 
under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to disturb the verdict. 
 
1.  Facts.  We recite the facts that the jury could have 
found, reserving certain facts for our analysis of the 
particular issues. 
From late 2005 to early 2006, the defendant would 
frequently stay with his girl friend, Janet Ojo, at her house on 
3 
 
 
 
Franklin Street in Quincy.  About two weeks before the shooting, 
the defendant and Ojo got into a dispute over money and she 
ended the relationship. 
 
On the evening of January 9, 2006, the defendant asked 
Courtney Forde to drive him to Ojo's house to pick up some 
belongings that he had left behind.  Forde picked the defendant 
up in his minivan.  He also brought along his friend and drug 
dealing associate, Paul Brown, and a woman whom Forde had 
recently met. 
 
When they arrived at Ojo's house, the defendant got out of 
the vehicle and went inside.  Ojo was not home, but the 
defendant encountered a few of her friends, including the 
victim.  The defendant and the victim got into a fistfight about 
some money that Ojo maintained the defendant had stolen from 
her.  The fight spilled outside to the front yard.  Brown got 
out of the minivan and attempted to tear off a door from a 
vehicle parked in the driveway.  Now outnumbered, the victim ran 
inside the house.  The defendant tried to re-enter the house and 
tossed a brick through one of the windows. 
 
The defendant and Brown got back into the minivan and Forde 
drove a short distance down the street, then stopped the vehicle 
because the defendant had remembered that he had left some "IDs" 
behind in a shoebox.  Forde, the defendant, and Brown walked 
4 
 
 
 
back to the house.  The victim was outside and ran back into the 
house when he saw the three approaching. 
 
Forde drove back to Boston.  Along the way, he dropped off 
the unnamed woman in Milton.  Forde stopped at the house in the 
Mattapan section of Boston where the defendant was staying at 
that time, and the defendant was able to find his keys to Ojo's 
house.  Forde, the defendant, and Brown returned there.  This 
time, nobody was home.  The three entered using the defendant's 
keys and took numerous items, some belonging to the defendant 
and some belonging to Ojo, including women's clothes, food, and 
electronics.  They also took two handguns stored in a shoebox, a 
revolver and a "rusty" Tec-9 semiautomatic pistol.  The 
defendant put the revolver "on his waist." 
 
The defendant then directed Forde to drive to an apartment 
building on Willard Street in Quincy, where, Forde knew, the 
defendant had stayed with Ojo in the past.  As they approached 
the building, Forde called two of his drug customers, who lived 
there.  He intended to ask one of them to open the back door so 
that the defendant could enter the building.  Neither answered. 
 
Forde backed the minivan into a dimly-lit spot near some 
trees, far from the entrance to the building.  At the same time, 
the victim left the building to retrieve a package of cigarettes 
from his vehicle.  The defendant and Brown got out of Forde's 
5 
 
 
 
vehicle, walked quickly over to the victim, and shot him several 
times.1 
 
At around midnight, a neighbor at the Willard Street 
building telephoned 911 to report hearing gunshots.  Police and 
emergency services responded to the scene, where they discovered 
the victim with three gunshot wounds.  He was transported to a 
hospital where he was pronounced dead. 
 
Police recovered two spent projectiles, fired from two 
different weapons, from the victim's body, and seven shell 
casings, all of which came from the same nine millimeter pistol.  
They also found on the ground near the victim's jacket a spent 
projectile that was "mostly" consistent with having been shot 
from a revolver. 
 
After the shooting, Forde drove to back to his house in 
Boston from Quincy.  Forde then went to the house of one of his 
friends, where the three men unloaded all of the items taken 
from Ojo's house, including a shoebox containing a rusty firearm 
and its magazine. 
 
2.  Discussion.  a.  Ineffective assistance of counsel.  
The defendant argues, as he did in his motion for a new trial, 
that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective.  He 
contends that counsel should have introduced CSLI evidence to 
                     
 
1 The Commonwealth charged Brown with the victim's murder, 
and he was acquitted in a separate trial. 
6 
 
 
 
challenge the testimony of Forde, who testified pursuant to a 
plea agreement, concerning his whereabouts during a specific 
period of time near the time of the shooting.  The defendant 
also maintains that counsel failed to investigate, and did not 
understand, the significance of the CSLI evidence.2 
 
In reviewing a claim of ineffective assistance in a case of 
murder in the first degree, we apply the more favorable standard 
of review of a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage justice, 
pursuant to G. L. c. 233, § 33E.  See Commonwealth v. Vargas, 
475 Mass. 338, 358 (2016).  Under this standard, "[w]e consider 
whether there was an error in the course of the trial (by 
defense counsel, the prosecutor, or the judge) and, if there 
was, whether that error was likely to have influenced the jury's 
conclusion."  Id., quoting Commonwealth v. Lessieur, 472 Mass. 
317, 327, cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 418 (2015).  Where the 
defendant's ineffective assistance claim is based on a tactical 
or strategic decision, we apply the more rigorous standard that, 
to be ineffective, the attorney's decision must have been 
"manifestly unreasonable."  Commonwealth v. Lang, 473 Mass. 1, 
14 (2015). 
 
i.  Failure to introduce exculpatory CSLI evidence.  The 
defendant argues that portions of the CSLI evidence that was not 
                     
2 The CSLI evidence was based on records from Forde's 
cellular telephone and the cellular telephone carried by Forde's 
girl friend. 
7 
 
 
 
introduced at trial would have served to challenge, and 
discredit, a portion of Forde's testimony about his actions 
following the confrontation with the victim at the Franklin 
Street residence, and before the return there later that 
evening.  He contests the accuracy of Forde's testimony that he 
and the defendant left Franklin Street, traveled to Mattapan for 
a brief period of time, and then returned to Franklin Street, 
without mentioning any stops along the way, particularly other 
stops in Mattapan and the Dorchester section of Boston.  The 
defendant points to CSLI evidence showing that Forde's telephone 
was absent from Quincy for more than one hour, and traveled to 
several locations in Mattapan and Dorchester during that time 
frame.3  He argues that trial counsel was ineffective because he 
                     
3 Cell site location information (CSLI) is "a cellular 
telephone service record or records that contain information 
identifying the base station towers and sectors that receive 
transmissions from a [cellular] telephone" (quotations and 
citation omitted).  Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 230, 
231 n.1 (2014), S.C., 470 Mass. 837 and 472 Mass. 448 (2015).  
"'Historical' CSLI refers to CSLI relating to and generated by 
cellular telephone use that has 'already occurred at the time of 
the order authorizing the disclosure of such data'" (citation 
omitted).  Id.  These records are not usable for real-time 
tracking.  In general, records of the specific tower which 
received a cellular telephone transmission at a given time can 
be used to provide a rough geographic location of that telephone 
at that time, within the transmission range of that tower.  Id. 
at 233.  See Commonwealth v. Gonzalez, 475 Mass. 396, 412 & n.37 
(2016)("data from a single cell phone tower" is not adequate to 
place caller within specific range of distance from that tower; 
in some circumstances, transmissions are not from tower that is 
geographically closest to location of given cellular telephone). 
8 
 
 
 
failed to introduce this independent evidence to discredit 
Forde's testimony. 
The judge determined that, while Forde's credibility "was 
an essential issue for the jury" because of his "indisputably 
critical" role in the Commonwealth's case, the defendant failed 
to establish that the decision not to use the CSLI was 
manifestly unreasonable.  The judge noted that the CSLI was a 
double-edged sword that both called into question Forde's 
earlier timeline and placed the defendant at the scene of the 
shooting.  In addition, the judge concluded that trial counsel 
effectively challenged Forde's credibility through rigorous 
cross-examination. 
We afford particular deference to a decision on a motion 
for a new trial where the motion judge was also the trial judge, 
see Commonwealth v. Forte, 469 Mass. 469, 488 (2014), and 
discern no abuse of discretion in this case.  The CSLI evidence 
did not materially impeach Forde's trial testimony.  Forde did 
not specify how long he, the defendant, and Brown were in Boston 
between the two trips to Quincy.  He testified, without 
providing any time frame, that they left Franklin Street, went 
to Milton to drop off the woman who had been with them, went to 
the house where the defendant was staying in Mattapan where the 
defendant went inside for five minutes to get his keys, from 
there went to a liquor store, and then drove back to Quincy. 
9 
 
 
 
 
Forde's cellular telephone, according to the CSLI evidence, 
was in Quincy at 9:48 P.M.; Mattapan and Dorchester from 10:17 
through 10:45 P.M.; and again in Quincy or Braintree from 
11:19 P.M. until at least 11:52 P.M..  Police received the 911 
call concerning shots fired in Quincy at 11:55 P.M.  The CSLI 
evidence thus contains a period of approximately twenty to 
twenty-five minutes that Forde did not describe during his trial 
testimony.4 
The CSLI evidence may have cast some doubt on Forde’s 
testimony concerning his whereabouts in Boston during that 
discrete time period.  The problem with the evidence, however, 
is that it corroborated Forde's testimony that he drove the 
defendant from Boston to Quincy at the time of the shooting.  
Thus, it was not manifestly unreasonable for trial counsel to 
decline to introduce evidence placing his client at the scene of 
the crime. 
Trial counsel was able to challenge Forde's testimony in a 
number of other ways, none of which carried the risk of 
                     
4 The defendant also argues that the CSLI evidence 
demonstrates that Forde was in contact with his girl friend, 
during this critical time frame and that his girl friend, who 
traveled from Boston to Quincy, coordinated her activities with 
Forde.  The CSLI evidence did not directly contradict Forde.  
Forde did not offer any testimony on the subject of telephoning 
his girl friend during his trips back and forth to Quincy.  
Moreover, the CSLI evidence did not contradict Forde's testimony 
that he met up with his girl friend sometime later in the 
evening. 
10 
 
 
 
corroborating Forde's testimony that he and the defendant had 
been in Quincy at the time of the shooting.  See generally 
Commonwealth v. Grenier, 415 Mass. 680, 685-687 (1993).  Trial 
counsel cross-examined Forde about his plea agreement, his 
occupation as a drug dealer, a prior incident in which he had 
shot at someone, his infidelity to his then girl friend, the 
care he took when loading his gun to make sure that his 
fingerprints were not on the bullets so that they could not be 
traced, and his extensive criminal record. 
Trial counsel also rigorously cross-examined Forde on 
inconsistencies between the version of events that he initially 
told police and his testimony at trial.5  See Commonwealth v. 
Valentin, 470 Mass. 186, 191 (2014) (counsel not ineffective in 
failing to cross-examine witness concerning particular statement 
                     
 
5 Initially, Forde did not tell police that he had smoked 
marijuana on the night of the shooting, but admitted on cross-
examination that he had smoked marijuana and consumed alcohol 
that night. 
 
 
Forde also testified that the guns that they took from 
Ojo's house were a Tec-9 pistol and a .38 revolver.  On cross-
examination, Forde admitted that he initially told police that 
the two guns the men found at Ojo's house were a Tec-9 pistol 
and a ".357."  In his closing, counsel argued that Forde had 
changed his story to fit the ballistics report, a further 
indication that he was lying. 
 
 
Forde testified further that he had never been to the 
Franklin Street house prior to the night of the shooting.  On 
cross-examination, however, Forde admitted that he had told 
State police that he had been to the Franklin Street house on 
prior occasions before the evening of the shooting. 
11 
 
 
 
where counsel otherwise "conducted a thorough impeachment" of 
witness through cross-examination). 
 
In his closing argument, trial counsel pointed to a number 
of reasons why the jury should not believe Forde.  He told the 
jury, "You have to look at Courtney Forde's testimony in the 
context of that deal . . . the deal of a lifetime . . . 
[whereby] Mr. Forde goes from [a] potential sentence of life in 
prison to walking away."  He reminded the jury of Forde's 
testimony that when the victim walked across the parking lot at 
the Willard Street building, Forde did not recognize him.  "Most 
crucially, he told us, from that witness stand[,] under oath[,] 
he did not recognize the man at Willard Street[.]  [H]e didn't 
recognize him as the man that had been fighting with [the 
defendant]." 
 
ii.  Failure to investigate.  The defendant argues that his 
trial counsel did not investigate properly the use of CSLI 
evidence, and did not understand its importance. 
 
The duty to investigate is one of the foundations of the 
effective assistance of counsel, because counsel's strategic 
decisions can be adequate only if counsel is sufficiently 
informed about the available options.  See Strickland v. 
Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 680 (1984) ("[T]he Sixth Amendment [to 
the United States Constitution] imposes on counsel a duty to 
investigate, because reasonably effective assistance must be 
12 
 
 
 
based on professional decisions and informed legal choices can 
be made only after investigation of options").  Trial counsel 
must conduct a reasonable investigation into possible defenses, 
even if counsel ultimately does not pursue those defenses at 
trial.  See Commonwealth v. Alvarez, 433 Mass. 93, 102 (2000) 
(trial counsel ineffective for failing to fully examine 
defendant's mental health records, which corroborated 
defendant's testimony about her own mental health history, and 
therefore would have aided in establishing defense of lack of 
criminal responsibility defense).  Nonetheless, "[w]hile counsel 
certainly has 'a duty to make reasonable investigations,' 
counsel is also afforded the opportunity to 'make a reasonable 
decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.'"  
Commonwealth v. Denis, 442 Mass. 617, 629 (2004), quoting 
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691.  "[S]trategic choices made after 
less than complete investigation are reasonable [only] to the 
extent that reasonable professional judgments support the 
limitation on investigation."  Commonwealth v. Baker, 440 Mass. 
519, 529 (2003), quoting Strickland, supra at 690-691. 
 
Here, the motion judge concluded that defense counsel 
conducted an adequate investigation of the CSLI evidence.  
According to an affidavit that the judge credited, defense 
counsel obtained the CSLI records and was aware that a 
telecommunications expert had testified at Brown's trial.  
13 
 
 
 
Counsel had a general understanding of that testimony, but was 
unaware of the specific details.  He included the expert's name 
on his list of possible witnesses, but believed that his 
testimony would not be necessary to impeach Forde's credibility.  
Counsel ultimately decided not to present the CSLI evidence 
through the expert witness "because, at the time [he] sincerely 
believed that [his] cross-examination of Courtney Forde had gone 
well and that [Forde] would not and could not be believed by the 
jury." 
 
Given this, there was no abuse of discretion in the judge's 
determination that defense counsel appreciated the value of the 
CSLI evidence and, as the trial progressed, continued to gauge 
the usefulness of this evidence.  That the defense strategy did 
not achieve an acquittal does not, in hindsight, thereby render 
defense counsel's strategic decision ineffective assistance of 
counsel.  See Commonwealth v. Kolenovic, 471 Mass. 664, 674-675 
(2015) (no ineffective assistance where defense counsel made 
strategic decision to pursue specific trial strategy, unless 
decision was manifestly unreasonable); Commonwealth v. Haley, 
413 Mass. 770, 777-778 (1992). 
 
b.  Denial of motion to suppress.  The defendant's second 
claim of error is that the judge who ruled on his motion to 
suppress erred in denying that motion and allowing the 
14 
 
 
 
introduction of Forde's testimony, because it was the product of 
an illegal wiretap. 
i.  Background.  On January 20, 2006, the Commonwealth 
obtained a warrant authorizing the placement of a wiretap on a 
booth in the visiting room at the Norfolk County house of 
correction in order to monitor conversations between the 
defendant and his visitors.  As a result of the wiretap 
recordings, police identified another witness, Gillian Gibbs, 
and obtained more information on Forde's involvement in the 
shooting. 
 
The defendant filed a motion to suppress the intercepted 
conversations, arguing that the wiretap was not authorized under 
G. L. c. 272, § 99.  A Superior Court judge, who was not the 
trial judge, allowed the motion.  She concluded that the wiretap 
did not meet the requirements of G. L. c. 272, § 99, because the 
Commonwealth failed to establish that the offense under 
investigation was committed in connection with "organized 
crime."  A single justice of this court allowed the 
Commonwealth's application to pursue an interlocutory appeal to 
this court, and we affirmed the Superior Court judge's decision.  
See Long, 454 Mass. at 550, 554-558. 
 
After an evidentiary hearing to determine the scope of the 
evidence to be suppressed, the motion judge excluded the 
recording of the conversation between the defendant and Gibbs, 
15 
 
 
 
and any testimony by Gibbs.  The judge found that Gibbs's 
decision to speak with police was directly motivated by the fact 
that they confronted her with the wiretap evidence.  The judge 
did not, however, order that any testimony by Forde be 
suppressed.  To the contrary, she concluded that Forde's 
decision to testify was sufficiently attenuated from the 
unlawful wiretap so as to dissipate the taint of illegality. 
The motion judge found the following.  See Commonwealth v. 
Scott, 440 Mass. 642, 646 (2004).  Police arrested the defendant 
on January 10, 2006.  The physical evidence, however, pointed to 
two shooters:  a surveillance video recording from a nearby 
store showed two distinct muzzle flashes, and projectiles 
recovered from the victim's body came from two different 
weapons.  One of the investigators listened to the defendant's 
recorded telephone calls from the house of correction in an 
effort to identify the second shooter.  In one of these 
conversations, the defendant spoke to "C," who said that he was 
"laying low."  The defendant told "C" to "fall back . . . way 
back."  Police developed information that "C," also known as 
"Casino," had been with the defendant earlier in the evening on 
January 9, 2006, and had made cellular telephone calls to 
individuals at the Willard Street address immediately before the 
shooting, but were unable to identify "C." 
16 
 
 
 
Police then obtained a warrant for a wiretap of one of the 
internal telephones used to communicate between visitors and 
inmates at the house of correction.  This wiretap enabled police 
to listen to a conversation between the defendant and Gibbs.  In 
that conversation, the defendant and Gibbs mentioned "C," in a 
manner such that police believed "C" was Forde.  Police met with 
an assistant district attorney, who issued a summons for Gibbs 
to appear before the grand jury.  Police interviewed Gibbs 
before she appeared and testified.  She said that Forde had told 
her that he had driven the defendant to the Willard Street 
address on the evening of the shooting, where the defendant got 
out and Forde "saw sparks."  Gibbs later said that she would not 
have told the police about Forde's statements if they had not 
told her that they had listened to her jailhouse conversation 
with the defendant.  Right after Gibbs appeared before the grand 
jury, police obtained a warrant to arrest Forde.  The affidavit 
in support of the application for the warrant is five pages 
long, and contains no mention of the wiretap.  The information 
that Gibbs provided to the grand jury is mentioned in a single 
paragraph. 
In March, 2006, Forde was arrested on the warrant.  He was 
held without bail pending trial, and declined to speak with 
police.  In August, 2006, Forde changed his mind and decided to 
speak with police.  He told them about Brown's and the 
17 
 
 
 
defendant's involvement in the events of January 9 of that year.  
Forde said that he had changed his mind about testifying against 
the defendant and Brown because the defendant had sent him a 
number of threatening letters and Brown had broken a previous 
agreement in which he was to continue selling drugs and giving 
some of the money to Forde. 
 
In November, 2006, Forde testified before the grand jury 
about the events on the evening of January 9, 2006.  Following 
this testimony, the district attorney offered him a plea 
agreement under which Forde was to receive a sentence of eight 
months of incarceration (the amount of time he already had 
served), followed by a term of probation on the lesser included 
charge of accessory after the fact, and the Commonwealth agreed 
to enter a nolle prosequi on the murder charge after he 
testified. 
In denying the defendant's motion to suppress Forde's 
testimony, the motion judge determined that, although Forde 
decided to testify after the unlawful wiretap, his decision was 
sufficiently attenuated from the unlawful activity so as to 
dissipate the taint of illegality.  The judge credited the 
testimony of a State trooper that Forde likely would have been 
charged in conjunction with the shooting, regardless of the 
wiretap, and therefore determined that "the evidence does not 
support the conclusion that the decision to arrest Forde was 
18 
 
 
 
solely in order to gain his cooperation."  She also credited 
Forde's testimony that he chose to speak with the police, not 
based on his knowledge of the wiretap, but as a result of his 
belief that the defendant and Brown had "disrespected" him. 
 
ii.  Exclusionary rule and attenuation exception.  Under 
the doctrine of the "fruit of the poisonous tree," evidence 
seized as a result of an illegal wiretap, even where the 
defendant was not the direct target of the wiretap, generally 
may not be admitted at trial.  See Commonwealth v. Damiano, 444 
Mass. 444, 453 (2005), citing Wong Sun v. United States, 371 
U.S. 471, 487-488 (1963).  The primary purpose for the 
suppression of evidence under the exclusionary rule is to deter 
unlawful searches and seizures.  Commonwealth v. Lora, 451 Mass. 
425, 438 (2008).  "The rule is calculated to prevent, not to 
repair.  Its purpose is to deter -- to compel respect for the 
constitutional guaranty in the only effectively available way -- 
by removing the incentive to disregard it."  United States v. 
Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 347 (1974), quoting Elkins v. United 
States, 364 U.S. 206, 217 (1960).  The exclusionary rule also 
functions to "preserve judicial integrity by disassociating the 
courts from unlawful [police] conduct."  Commonwealth v. Nelson, 
460 Mass. 564, 570-571 (2011). 
 
The attenuation doctrine provides an exception to the 
exclusionary rule under which evidence obtained by police as a 
19 
 
 
 
result of an unlawful search need not be excluded if the 
connection between the illegal search and the evidence is so 
attenuated as to dissipate any taint of illegality.  
Commonwealth v. Fredette, 396 Mass. 455, 458-463 (1985).  The 
theory of dissipation of the taint attempts to determine the 
point of diminishing returns at which the detrimental 
consequences of illegal police action become so attenuated that 
the deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule no longer 
justifies its costs.  See United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 
268, 275 (1978), and cases cited; Damiano, 444 Mass. at 453-454; 
Commonwealth v. Sylvia, 380 Mass. 180, 183 (1980). 
 
To determine whether evidence that is discovered after an 
illegal search is sufficiently attenuated from that search so as 
to dissipate the taint, the court considers the length of time 
between the unlawful search and the discovery of the evidence 
(temporal attenuation); whether any circumstances intervened 
between the illegal act and the discovery of the evidence 
(intervening circumstances); and how integral the unlawful 
search was to the acquisition of the evidence (purpose and 
flagrancy of the unlawful conduct).  Fredette, 396 Mass. at 460.  
The burden is on the Commonwealth to establish that the taint 
has been sufficiently attenuated.  Damiano, 444 Mass. at 454, 
citing Fredette, supra at 459. 
20 
 
 
 
 
The defendant maintains that Forde's testimony should have 
been suppressed because, but for the illegal wiretap, the 
Commonwealth would not have had enough information to arrest 
him, and therefore Forde would not have been compelled to tell 
police what he knew in exchange for his release.  We do not 
apply a "but for" test in determining whether to suppress 
testimony obtained after an unlawful search.  Commonwealth v. 
Caso, 377 Mass. 236, 240 (1979).  Commonwealth v. Suters, 90 
Mass. App. Ct. 449, 458 (2016).  Instead, we consider the above-
noted three factors (temporal attenuation, intervening 
circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the unlawful 
conduct) to determine "whether . . . the evidence . . . has been 
come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means 
sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint" 
(citation omitted).  Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 488.  Damiano, 444 
Mass. at 453.  Here, the factors support a determination that 
Forde's decision to testify was sufficiently attenuated from the 
illegal wiretap to dissipate any taint from the illegality. 
 
As to attenuation of time, in some circumstances, a lapse 
of time of as little as three hours from the illegal search to 
the decision to speak with police may be enough to dissipate the 
taint.  See Commonwealth v. Fielding, 371 Mass. 97, 114 (1976).  
See also Commonwealth v. Gallant, 381 Mass. 465, 466-467, 470 
(1980) (lapse of mere minutes between defendant's unlawful 
21 
 
 
 
arrest and decision to make statement, when considered in 
conjunction with other factors, was sufficient to dissipate 
taint).  In the circumstances here, however, the judge found 
that Forde's decision to speak to police seven months after the 
illegal wiretap, and five months after his arrest, weighed in 
favor of attenuation.  See Fielding, supra.  The five-month 
period between Forde's arrest and his decision to testify made 
it more likely that his decision to testify was an independent, 
free choice, and not a result of the unlawful wiretap or the 
arrest that followed.  Id. 
 
As to the existence of intervening circumstances, if a 
witness's decision to testify involves an affirmative choice, 
that choice may be an intervening circumstance sufficient to 
dissipate the taint of illegality.  Caso, 377 Mass. at 241 ("[A] 
truly voluntary decision by a witness to testify should not be 
overridden unless the extreme circumstances of a particular case 
require the suppression of the testimony as a deterrent to . . . 
the unlawful conduct which resulted in the discovery of the 
witness").  See Commonwealth v. Lahti, 398 Mass. 829, 833-836 
(1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1017 (1987) (no attenuation where 
judge found close connection between defendant's involuntary 
statement and acquisition of witness testimony). 
 
In this case, the motion judge found that Forde's decision 
to testify, as Forde himself testified, was not based on 
22 
 
 
 
anything stemming from the illegal wiretap evidence.  Rather, 
his decision was based on the conduct of his accomplices.  He 
testified that he decided to speak with police because the 
defendant and Brown had "disrespected" him.   See Caso, 377 
Mass. at 243 (examining whether witness's decision to testify 
was act of free will). 
 
As to the purpose and flagrancy of the illegal search, we 
ask, first, whether the police performed the illegal act for the 
purpose of obtaining the evidence that the defendant seeks to 
suppress, and second, whether the police knew that their actions 
were illegal but proceeded anyway (flagrancy).  See Lahti, 398 
Mass. at 833; Commonwealth v. Parham, 390 Mass. 833, 843 (1984). 
 
Where police did not confront the witness with the 
illegally obtained evidence in order to coerce that witness to 
testify, this factor weighs in favor of allowing the testimony.  
See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Estabrook, 472 Mass. 852, 860-865 
(2015).  This is so even where the witness knew of the illegally 
obtained evidence.  See Parham, 390 Mass. at 843-844 
(defendant's confession not suppressed notwithstanding his 
knowledge of codefendant's illegally-obtained confession, 
because police had not confronted him with that statement).  
Similarly, we have declined to suppress a defendant's statement, 
made after an illegal arrest, where the police did not make the 
23 
 
 
 
illegal arrest for the purpose of obtaining the statement.  See 
Fielding, 371 Mass. at 114. 
 
Because the police did not conduct the illegal wiretap with 
the purpose of obtaining Forde's testimony, and did not confront 
Forde with the wiretapped conversations, the motion judge 
properly determined that the purpose and flagrancy of the 
illegal wiretap was sufficiently attenuated from Forde's 
decision to testify as to dissipate the taint of illegality.  
See Estabrook, 472 Mass. at 860-865; Caso, 377 Mass. at 241.  In 
this light, Forde's decision to testify stands in stark contrast 
to Gibbs's decision to testify, which was made as a direct 
result of being confronted with the illegal wiretap evidence.  
Police did not confront Forde directly or indirectly with the 
illegally wiretapped conversation in order to induce him to 
testify.  In short, police did not use information from the 
illegal wiretap to arrest and hold Forde in the house of 
correction in order to exert pressure on him to strike a deal. 
We conclude, therefore, that there was no error in the 
judge's determination that the taint of the illegal wiretap was 
sufficiently attenuated as to allow Forde's testimony to be 
introduced at trial. 
 
c.  Review pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  We have 
reviewed the record pursuant to our obligation under G. L. 
24 
 
 
 
c. 278, § 33E, and discern no reason to reduce the verdict or 
order a new trial. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
Order denying defendant's 
motion for a new trial 
affirmed.