Source: http://masscases.com/cases/app/55/55massappct505.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 01:41:49+00:00

Document:
Arrest. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Admissions and confessions. Evidence, Admissions and confessions. Telephone.
INDICTMENTS found and returned in the Superior Court Department on July 16, 1999.
Pretrial motions to suppress evidence were heard by John S. McCann, J.
Brian J. Buckley for the defendant.
failure of the police to conform to the requirements of G. L. c. 276, § 33A, which we set out in the margin, [Note 2] combined with a false and deceptive statement by the police that was coupled with a promise of leniency in return for an inculpatory statement. We affirm the judge's order.
Responding to an emergency telephone call at 611 Millbury Street, Worcester, on May 25, 1999, at about 11:00 P.M., the police entered a second-floor apartment at that address and found Perez-Caraballo with his hands and feet duct taped and bleeding from wounds on his head. He was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital where he subsequently died of a gunshot wound to the head and a substantial head trauma. The police found a store receipt for duct tape in the apartment.
followed the defendant to the station with their children. Shortly thereafter, the police advised Gomez to return home with her children, and she did so. We outline the succeeding events, following the time-line set out by the judge in his findings.
10:30 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. Gingerelli questioned the defendant in an interview room at the police station. The defendant gave an exculpatory statement that accounted for his whereabouts during the evening in question.
During this interview, Gingerelli stepped out of the interview room and joined other detectives who were watching a store surveillance video that recorded events during the night of the shooting. The video depicted two males purchasing duct tape. Gingerelli identified the defendant as one of the figures on the tape. At this point, Gingerelli considered the defendant a suspect in the murder.
11:30 A.M. to 2:30 P.M. Gingerelli, along with Detective Looney, returned to the interview room and, before completing the defendant's first statement, read the defendant his Miranda rights. The defendant acknowledged that he could read and understand English, and that he understood his Miranda rights and wished to waive those rights. The defendant then signed the Miranda card, as did Gingerelli and Looney. After the first statement was completed, the detectives told the defendant that he was on the store videotape and was now a suspect in the murder. The detectives asked the defendant to review and sign his previous two-page alibi statement to Gingerelli, and he did so.
Detectives Gingerelli and Looney then interrogated the defendant for almost three hours, until approximately 2:30 P.M. The defendant viewed the store video, but he denied being the person shown on the tape. Up to this point, the defendant had made no incriminating statements.
3:00 P.M. to 5:30 P.M. Shortly after 3:00 P.M., Detectives Gingerelli and Looney resumed their interrogation of the defendant. Gomez came into the interview room and remained throughout the interview. Gomez was upset, and she appeared to be sick. The defendant was crying as he talked to his wife about their family, her pregnancy, and the baby. Gomez told the defendant, in Spanish, about her conversation with the police, including Rutherford's statement that if the defendant cooperated with the police, they promised to give him "less time."
The defendant waived his Miranda rights and then gave a second statement, incriminating himself for the first time. Simply put, he acknowledged acting as the lookout for the planned robbery of the victim. After the second statement was reduced to writing, the police asked the defendant to read and sign it; he did as requested. Gomez then left the station. The time was now about 5:30 P. M.; this interview had lasted about two and one-half hours.
person. He instructed the other party to give him some money for the canteen, to find out if bail had been set, to find a good lawyer, and to tell Gomez and his children that he loved them. It was now 7:20 P.M.
10:00 P.M. to 12:15 A.M. Shortly after 10:00 P.M., Sergeant Towner instructed Detective Coakley to obtain a third statement from the defendant. [Note 8] Before Coakley began to take the defendant's statement, Towner read from a multiple rights form, which included, for the first time, information concerning the defendant's right to a telephone call under G. L. c. 276, § 33A. After Towner read this form to the defendant, the defendant read the form himself and signed it. It was now 10:20 P.M., three hours after booking and approximately eleven hours after the defendant had first been considered a suspect in the murder.
Coakley, with Detective Quitadamo present, then conducted the interview, during which the defendant gave a third statement, further incriminating himself by acknowledging that he had been in the apartment when the shooting had occurred. The defendant was given a printed copy of his statement. He read it, said he understood it, and signed it. He also signed a consent form to search his motor vehicle. It was now 12:15 A.M. The defendant had been in the police station for nearly 14 hours. There was no indication whether he had received any nourishment.
was a suspect in the crime, no one advised him of his right to make a telephone call in order to communicate with his family or friends, to arrange bail, or to engage an attorney. It was not until 7:15 P.M., after the defendant had given his incriminating statement for the first time, that he was allowed to use a telephone, and it was not until 10:20 P.M. that he was specifically advised of his statutory right to the use of a telephone.
The judge ruled that the statutory violation was intentional. This ruling was based on the judge's findings that the five detectives involved in questioning the defendant from 11:30 A.M. on May 27 to 12:30 A.M. on May 28 were veterans, with more than 70 years' aggregate experience. Further, the printed form that the police gave to the defendant at 10:20 P.M. had the suspect's § 33A rights printed on it.
On the basis of these findings, the judge concluded that "the detectives knew of the statutory right, and refused, failed or neglected to so inform [the defendant] earlier, at 11:30 A.M., of such right. . . . [S]uch wanton or reckless disregard of [the defendant's] rights rises to the level of intentional conduct by all of the detectives."
The judge ruled that "[w]here the action of the detectives is intentional [,] suppression is required," citing Commonwealth v. Alicea, [Note 10] 428 Mass. 711 , 716 (1999). The judge ordered the suppression of the defendant's second statement.
We turn, then, to the third statement made by the defendant which the judge, citing Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963), summarily ordered to be suppressed as well. The Commonwealth argues that the defendant's third statement should not have been suppressed under Wong Sun as the "fruit of the poisonous tree," because there was sufficient attenuation between the second and third statements.
taint." Commonwealth v. Fredette, 396 Mass. 455 , 459 (1985), citing Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341 (1939).
The Commonwealth has not carried that burden. We recapitulate the circumstances. The defendant's first statement -- an alibi -- was totally discredited by the defendant's second statement in which he implicated himself in the murder. The defendant gave the second statement in response to the unlawful promise by the police that if he cooperated he would serve "less time," and before he was finally notified of his right to make a telephone call. The police needed the third statement to verify certain details of the crime the defendant had described in his second statement. See note 8, supra.
The order suppressing the second and third statements is affirmed.
[Note 1] A single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court allowed the Commonwealth's application for an interlocutory appeal on April 4, 2001.
[Note 2] General Laws c. 276, § 33A, provides that: "The police official in charge of the station or other place of detention having a telephone wherein a person is held in custody, shall permit the use of the telephone, at the expense of the arrested person, for the purpose of allowing the arrested person to communicate with his family or friends, or to arrange for release on bail, or to engage the services of an attorney. Any such person shall be informed forthwith upon his arrival at such station, or place of detention, of his right to so use the telephone, and such use shall be permitted within one hour thereafter."
[Note 3] There is no involvement in this case of Federal or State constitutional rights which otherwise would require us to make our own independent determination of the correctness of the judge's constitutional rulings on the facts found. See Commonwealth v. Perry, 432 Mass. 214 , 234 (2000).
[Note 4] Although the record is unclear as to whether the defendant and Gomez are married, the judge referred to Gomez as the defendant's wife in his findings.
[Note 5] Because the suppression of the defendant's ensuing incriminating statement is not challenged by the Commonwealth, we need not comment on the deceptive statement by the police. See, however, Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. 201 , 216 n.21 ("[p]olice deception, can, if sufficiently egregious, eviscerate the voluntariness of any subsequent statement").
[Note 6] Lieutenant Rutherford was deceased at the time of the hearing.
[Note 7] During the motion hearing, a court interpreter translated the defendant's telephone call.
[Note 8] Another individual, Reinaldo Colon, had been arrested that evening and had given a statement about the homicide. Various inconsistencies between Colon's statement and the defendant's statement led to the decision to interview the defendant a third time.
[Note 9] The Commonwealth makes no argument to the contrary.
[Note 10] The similarity in the names is a coincidence.
[Note 11] The Commonwealth makes no argument that the appearance of the defendant's wife at the police station before the defendant gave an incriminating statement terminated the isolation of the defendant in the station house -- the condition for which the statute is designed to provide relief. However, after the defendant gave the police an incriminating statement, and after the defendant was finally told of his right to make a telephone call, he called a friend and, inter alia, asked him to find the defendant a good lawyer.
One can only speculate whether, had the plaintiff been allowed to make a call within an hour of being told he was a suspect at about 11:30 A.M., the defendant's friend might have secured a lawyer who, if he had arrived promptly at the police station, might have advised the defendant to say nothing. That uncertainty cannot favor the police, however, lest § 33A be undone completely; the commands of § 33A are unequivocal. In short, had the Commonwealth made such an argument, it would not have succeeded. We also emphasize that Lieutenant Rutherford's promise to Gomez of a reduced sentence in return for the cooperation of the defendant -- which was promptly conveyed by her to the defendant -- was prohibited conduct by the police, the effect of which was to nullify the second statement. See Commonwealth v. Brandwein, 435 Mass. 623 , 634 (2002), quoting from Commonwealth v. Meehan, 377 Mass. 552 , 564 (1979) ("An officer may suggest broadly that it would be 'better' for a suspect to tell the truth," as long as there is no 'assurance, express or implied, that it will aid the defense or result in a lesser sentence" [emphasis added]).
"Q. Is there now something additional you would like to add to your previous statements?
"A. The first one I lied cause I was scared. The second one I lied cause I didn't want to hurt my family. The second one was mostly true. I just want to tell the truth about everything" (emphasis added).
[Note 13] We reject the Commonwealth's argument that Wong Sun's principles are not available in this case.

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