Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/363/363mass311.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 08:29:57+00:00

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COMMONWEALTH vs. JOSEPH P. REMBISZEWSKI, JR.
INDICTMENT found and returned in the Superior Court on May 8, 1970.
Manuel Morse, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
KAPLAN, J. Joan Rembiszewski was killed in the early morning of October 12, 1969. Her body was found lying beside a station wagon on a cart path in a wooded area off Route 146 in Sutton, Massachusetts.
Her husband, a Worcester school teacher, was indicted for murder and was tried by a jury who found him guilty of murder in the first degree but recommended that the sentence of death be not imposed. Subsequently the defendant made a motion for a new trial which the judge denied after hearing. The case was taken under G. L. c. 278, Sections 33A-33G, and is here upon assignments of error of which all but six have been waived by the defendant. We give here a sketch of so much of the case as is needed to orient the several assignments.
Around 2 A.M. on Sunday, October 12, the defendant was discovered on his hands and knees on the edge of Route 146 about 200 feet from the entrance to the cart path. He had signaled feebly and attracted the attention of two couples passing in a car. They stopped and tried to help the defendant, then flagged another passing car and asked the occupants to summon the police, which they did. The defendant meanwhile, in a seemingly hysterical condition, kept repeating "Help Joan. They hit her with a hammer," or words to that effect. The defendant's station wagon and a woman's body were found upon brief search, and the identities of the defendant and the dead woman quickly ascertained.
in Worcester where Dr. Arthur S. Giroux examined him as well as X-rays that were taken of his head. He had complained of facial and head pains and continued in a disturbed condition, lapsing into some incoherence when the recent episode was broached. A police officer known to the defendant attempted to carry on an interrogation or conversation; the officer recited the Miranda formulas although the defendant was not under arrest. Later that morning the defendant was taken from the hospital to the State police barracks at Grafton and interrogated. In the afternoon of the same day the defendant returned to the hospital where he was examined by a Dr. Walsh.
On October 16 the defendant went voluntarily to the office of the State police for interrogation. The police confronted the defendant with facts about his relations with two women which raised the possibility that he might have had a motive or impulsion to become violent toward his wife. It appeared that the defendant had spoken to each of the women of marrying her after divorcing his wife; the second woman, whom he had seen on the day before the murder, may have become possessive even though he indicated at trial that on his part he had not had serious intentions. On October 15, a hammer had been found near the scene which could qualify as the murder weapon. Upon further police investigation, the defendant was charged with the killing.
It was established that on the fatal night the defendant and his wife had dinner at the house of friends in Auburn, Massachusetts. They left in the station wagon about 12:30 A.M. for their home in Grafton.
story, for which there was virtually no corroboration, and on the evidence concluded instead that the defendant had committed the crime.
For the Commonwealth, one Warner P. Peters testified that on the night of the crime, about 1 A.M., he was traveling in his car with a companion, Ellen T. M. Robert. He saw a station wagon, which he later with difficulty identified as the Rembiszewskis', pass him in a dangerous fashion [Note 5] and pull off Route 146 onto the path where the body was later found. He swore that a man was driving, a woman was in the passenger's place on the front seat, and the rear seat was empty.
Mrs. Rembiszewski's body was found alongside the station wagon, on the driver's side, head to the front of the car, her legs extended, and clothing in place. According to medical testimony, death had been caused by a number of severe blows with an instrument crushing her forehead and upper face. There was a pool of blood under her head, the clothing about her neck was bloodstained, and a small amount of blood had spattered the lower part of the exterior left front door of the car and the panel below. No blood was found on the defendant's person or clothing. [Note 6] After three days search of the area by the police, a ballpeen hammer was found in three inches of water in a swampy spot about 185 feet from the car and some fifty-six feet from a dry place from which it could have been thrown. There was expert opinion that the hammer had been in the water less than a week. A small quantity of human blood was detected where the handle of the hammer met the hammer head. This hammer, according to the doctors, could have been used to inflict the massive lacerations of the victim's head.
of the defendant's silence at any later stage of trial, and that Dr. Giroux was himself called and testified fully about his findings, we cannot believe that the error was material. What emerged from Dr. Giroux's testimony was that the X-rays showed no fracture of the skull; that there were visible but minor scratches or abrasions of the face; and that there was a visible puncture of one heel which was cleaned and bandaged at the hospital. [Note 8] Thus the defendant's condition as verified was not inconsistent with his protestations, the absence of a fracture of the skull being compatible with a headache and even with a brain concussion, as the doctor himself said.
2. Returning to the hospital during the afternoon of October 12, the defendant was examined by Dr. Walsh. A hospital information sheet, signed by Dr. Walsh, stated under the caption "Admitting Diagnosis" that the defendant had been "Beaten up in Sutton, Mass." Upon cross-examination of Dr. Giroux, defence counsel emphasized this "diagnosis." The prosecutor countered on redirect examination by eliciting from Dr. Giroux, over objection and exception, that the admitting diagnosis "is put down by the secretary in the emergency room at that time. The patient will come in and voice his complaint; and she'll put down the admitting diagnosis which, in actuality, is not even a provisional diagnosis; it's the impression of the secretary. . . . I really don't pay too much attention to this because this is put down by the secretary." [Note 9] On recross-examination defence counsel asked, "So that you, of your own knowledge, do not know what transpired as to the making of the record and as to the relationship of the making of the record and Doctor Walsh?" Answer, "Correct."
tended unfairly to corroborate Peters by suggesting that Miss Robert had said -- to Peters and possibly to the prosecution -- that she saw the car turn into the path. (The defence had previously tried to discredit Peters by introducing his criminal record and attempting to show that he had made prior inconsistent statements to the police.) The quoted question was peculiar in form and somewhat suggestive, but it was open to the trial judge to allow the examiner to put a leading question to his own witness in order to refresh memory. Guiffre v. Carapezza, 298 Mass. 458, 459-460. See McCormick, Evidence (2d ed.) Section 6; Hughes, Evidence Section 184. Anyway, the prosecution's foray did little to further its case, since Miss Robert held to her testimony that she had not observed the car making a move into the cart path.
out in that way in the car, whereas it manifestly could not have been so perpetrated while still leaving the interior of the car free of bloodstains, as was the case here. [Note 10] Thus, argued the defence, the defendant's entire position in the case might have been compromised.
It appears, however, that the defendant vacillated in describing the assault on his wife. In his statements to the police, as recounted at the trial by two officers, he first said that she had been hit with a hammer while she was inside the car; later he said he was not certain whether she was inside the car or outside when she was struck. At the trial the defendant testified she had not been struck while in the car; he denied having said the contrary to the police, then claimed that he was in such condition that he did not know what he said to the police at the time. [Note 11] The prosecution was entitled to elicit an opinion directed to the defendant's first version of the facts as testified to by the police officers. In view of the gross improbability that the entire assault could have occurred inside the car, the jury could perhaps conclude that the defendant had merely misspoken or been misunderstood during the police interview; but that was a matter for the jury and hardly a reason for excluding the hypothetical question.
closing arguments and the judge's charge to the jury, without a prior request for instructions, but the exception could nevertheless be entertained. Commonwealth v. Moore, 323 Mass. 70, 77. Commonwealth v. Benders, 361 Mass. 704, 707. When asked to identify any evidence in the case that could support a verdict of manslaughter, defence counsel could not do so but pointed instead to the prosecutor's closing speech to the jury in which he imagined an argument between the defendant and his wife about divorce, leading to a struggle. In his brief the defendant suggests that the jury, from the presence of scratches on the defendant's face, could have found an attack by the wife upon the defendant amounting to provocation. But the judge would have been wrong to charge on manslaughter without some supporting evidence of the commission of that crime. Commonwealth v. Moore, supra, at 78. Commonwealth v. Campbell, 352 Mass. 387, 392. Commonwealth v. McCauley, 355 Mass. 554, 559. Commonwealth v. Costa, 360 Mass. 177, 184. Here, quite apart from the fact that in the defendant's own submission during the trial he engaged in no struggle with his wife, the proof did not furnish a basis for a finding that the defendant killed in a sudden transport of passion but without malice. It is an extravagant suggestion that scratches by the wife could serve as provocation for a malice-free but ferocious attack by the defendant with a deadly instrument. See Commonwealth v. Hartford, 346 Mass. 482, 490-491; Commonwealth v. Kendrick, 351 Mass. 203, 210-213; Commonwealth v. Kinney, 361 Mass. 709, 711. The facts, indeed, might have led to the verdict of murder in the first degree by reason of extreme atrocity or cruelty, where malice could be "presumed" regardless of provocation and sudden passion. Commonwealth v. Rogers, 351 Mass. 522, 532-533.
August 30 and September 2, 1971. On September 16, 1971, the motion was denied.
The defendant does not contend in this court that the evidence received at the trial was insufficient to justify the jury's verdict, [Note 12] but he asserts that new material brought forward on the post-verdict motion called for a retrial and that the trial judge, in denying it, abused the broad discretion which he undoubtedly has in considering such a motion. Commonwealth v. Stout, 356 Mass. 237, 243. Commonwealth v. Robertson, 357 Mass. 559, 562. Commonwealth v. Bernier, 359 Mass. 13, 16.
First, Miss Robert, who was in the car with Peters, now testified for the defence that Peters had been drinking rather steadily and was "feeling good" all during the night of October 11-12. Miss Robert had been called by the Commonwealth at the trial, but defence counsel had not interrogated her on the matter of Peters's sobriety, although he had put questions to Peters suggesting that Peters might have been drinking. The judge chose to give counsel another chance with Miss Robert although he was probably not obliged to do so, cf. Commonwealth v. Underwood, 358 Mass. 506, 510-511; Commonwealth v. Richardson, 361 Mass. 661, 663, but the product of the examination was not impressive. Although she said Peters "wasn't sober" she also indicated that he was in a condition to drive, and in fact he drove a considerable distance that night. A police officer testified at the hearing on the motion for a new trial that on the day following the murder Miss Robert had told him that Peters had had "a couple of beers" and that "he wasn't drunk in any way."
(one of them apparently crossing a neighbor's property) about 10 P.M. before the murder. Richard described two of these men as being "on the colored side" or "on the dark side"; he was unable to describe the third. He said two of the men were about five feet, six inches tall, and two were wearing light colored clothes, one dark clothes. Richard said that after learning of the murder he had reported his observations to a police officer, whom he identified as present in the court room, but the police did not follow up with him, and he had not come forward until three weeks before the new trial hearing, when he spoke to defence counsel. When it is considered that there were black families residing in the neighborhood; that Richard's description of the men was flimsy and in part contradicted the defendant's description of the black men who supposedly waylaid him; and that the officer identified denied ever seeing Richard or being tendered the information, Richard's testimony seems frail indeed.
of a bowling league or the like. They seem to have been innocent but curious passersby.
Even if we were to overlook the weight which should be accorded to the decision of the trial judge on a motion for a new trial, we could not disagree with his conclusion that "[n]o credible material evidence was presented at the hearing to warrant a new trial." Some suggestion is made that law enforcement officials improperly failed to communicate to the defence information about the witnesses' observations of black men, but this remains at the level of mere innuendo.
The transcript has been read in the light of our power and duty under G. L. c. 278, Section 33E. We do not find reason to disturb the conviction.
[Note 1] Some of the defendant's testimony at trial suggested that the black men stole small amounts from his wallet or his wife's purse; this was in contrast to his statements to the police that he had not been robbed. Rings and a wristwatch on the victim's hand were undisturbed.
[Note 2] The defendant had spoken to the police of a third black man who followed in the black car behind the station wagon after it was commandeered, but the third man was nonexistent or nebulous in the defendant's testimony at trial.
[Note 3] See point 4 and note 11 below regarding the defendant's statements and testimony as to whether the victim was struck in the station wagon or on the cart path outside and whether the instrument used was a hammer.
[Note 4] There was evidence that when the station wagon was taken in charge by the police the rear doors were locked and there was a film of dust on the rear seat and rear arm rests.
[Note 5] The station wagon blinked its headlights and passed close to Peters, nearly forcing him off the road.
[Note 6] Except for a bloodstain on a sock; see point 1 below about a puncture of the heel of the defendant's foot.
[Note 7] The Commonwealth seeks to justify the judge's ruling on an amorphous theory of "res gestae," but the case chiefly relied on, Commonwealth v. Simpson, 300 Mass. 45, is hardly in point (see especially at 49-51). The issue in the present case is closer to that in Commonwealth v. Wallace, 346 Mass. 9, where an attempted "res gestae" circumvention of the hearsay objection failed.
[Note 8] The defendant when discovered was without one or both shoes which had been recovered before he left for the hospital.
[Note 9] The more formal portion of this record was "Physician's Report."
[Note 10] There was evidence of a very small bloodstain on a chrome strip on the interior of the right front door, but it is fair to assume that this was unrelated to the events of October 12.
[Note 11] The defendant also vacillated in his references to a hammer. A hammer figured in his exclamations when discovered at the roadside and thereafter in his statements to the police; at the trial he said he never saw a hammer, only the handle of some instrument "coming down" or "coming up."
[Note 12] The judge denied the defendant's motion for a directed verdict at the close of the Commonwealth's case and also denied requests for rulings at the close of all the evidence which were viewed as equivalent to a motion for a directed verdict. Exceptions to these rulings were expressly waived.
[Note 13] These were three of the four occupants of the car that discovered the defendant on the shoulder of the road, and the three occupants of the car that summoned the police and then returned to the scene.

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