Title: Field v. Commonwealth
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-11817
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: December 1, 2015

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SJC-11817 
 
EUNICE FIELD  vs.  COMMONWEALTH. 
 
December 1, 2015. 
 
 
Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts.  
Practice, Criminal, Assistance of counsel, Admissions and 
confessions, Voluntariness of statement.  Mental Health.  
Witness, Expert, Privilege.  Privileged Communication.  
Evidence, Expert opinion, Medical record, State of mind, 
Voluntariness of statement, Communication between patient 
and psychotherapist. 
 
 
 
Eunice Field appeals from a judgment of a single justice of 
this court denying, without a hearing, her petition for relief 
under G. L. c. 211, § 3.  We affirm. 
 
 
After a trial in the Superior Court, Field was convicted of 
murder in the first degree.  Her appeal from that conviction is 
pending in this court and has been stayed pending resolution of 
her motion for a new trial.  In that motion, Field argued that 
trial counsel deprived her of effective assistance by failing to 
consult with a psychiatric expert.  In a supplemental motion, 
she argued that she was further deprived of effective assistance 
when trial counsel failed to move to suppress her statements to 
the police, in part on the ground that her mental state rendered 
her statements involuntary.  On the Commonwealth's motions, the 
trial judge ordered that trial counsel be summonsed to testify 
at the hearing on Field's motion1 and that Field provide the 
Commonwealth with certain discovery, including any of her mental 
health treatment records that were considered by her posttrial 
mental health expert in preparing his report.  Field's G. L. 
                     
 
1 In doing so, the judge stated that any action on 
assertions of the attorney-client privilege would be taken on a 
question-by-question basis. 
2 
 
c. 211, § 3, petition followed, seeking relief from these 
orders. 
 
 
The case is before us pursuant to S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as 
amended, 434 Mass. 1301 (2001), which requires an appellant 
seeking relief from interlocutory rulings of the trial court to 
"set forth the reasons why review of the trial court decision 
cannot adequately be obtained on appeal from any final adverse 
judgment in the trial court or by other available means."  Field 
asserts that requiring trial counsel to testify would violate 
her attorney-client privilege and that production of her mental 
health treatment records would violate her psychotherapist-
patient privilege.  Field has an adequate alternative remedy; if 
any evidence is admitted at the hearing in violation of Field's 
privileges, the error can be remedied on appeal from any adverse 
ruling on the motion for a new trial.2  Claims of privilege are 
routinely addressed in the ordinary appellate process.  See 
Commonwealth v. Sliech-Brodeur, 457 Mass. 300, 329 (2010) 
(defendant's prior attorney's testimony violated attorney-client 
privilege); Murray v. Karzon, 423 Mass. 1007, 1008 (1996) 
(extraordinary relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3, not warranted 
despite claim that disclosure would cause irreparable breach of 
confidentiality of records).  The single justice neither erred 
nor abused her discretion by denying extraordinary relief. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
The case was submitted on the papers filed, accompanied by 
a memorandum of law. 
 
 
Elizabeth Caddick for the petitioner. 
                     
 
2 If the motion for a new trial is denied, Field's appeal 
therefrom presumably will be consolidated with her direct appeal 
from her conviction.