Title: Commonwealth v. Smith
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-11723
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: March 11, 2016

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
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error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of 
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SJC-11723 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  DONOVAN K. SMITH. 
 
 
 
Worcester.     November 6, 2015. - March 11, 2016. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Cordy, Botsford, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. 
 
 
Homicide.  Robbery.  Attempt.  Felony-Murder Rule.  
Constitutional Law, Admissions and confessions, Assistance 
of counsel.  Evidence, Admissions and confessions, 
Videotape.  Practice, Criminal, Admissions and confessions, 
Assistance of counsel, Capital case. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on December 7, 2010. 
 
 
A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Janet 
Kenton-Walker, J., and the cases were tried before John S. 
McCann, J.  
 
 
 
Aziz Safar for the defendant. 
 
Susan M. Oftring, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
BOTSFORD, J.  A Superior Court jury found the defendant 
guilty of the attempted armed robbery and murder in the first 
degree of Michelle Diaz on theories of extreme atrocity or 
cruelty and felony-murder.  In this direct appeal from his 
2 
 
convictions, the defendant challenges the admission in evidence 
of his videotaped statement to the police, and the admission of 
an enhanced recording of a statement made by the defendant while 
he was left alone during the police interrogation.  He requests 
relief pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  We conclude that the 
failure of the police to honor the defendant's right to 
terminate questioning, a claim the defendant did not raise 
below, created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of 
justice and requires the reversal of the defendant's 
convictions; the defendant is entitled to a new trial. 
 
1.  Background.  From the evidence presented at trial, the 
jury could have found the following.  On August 24, 2010, at 
approximately 12:45 P.M., Sara Ventura parked her automobile on 
Fairfax Road in Worcester.  As she was getting out of the 
vehicle, she heard a loud scream and looked in the direction of 
the scream.  She saw nothing, but a few seconds later, she heard 
what sounded like a gunshot.  She then saw a young African-
American man running very quickly down the street.1  Around the 
same time, Carlos Tumer, who was in his apartment on Fairfax 
Road, heard a "pop" and looked outside the window, where he saw 
a woman, later identified as the victim, sitting in the driver's 
                     
 
1 The man had short hair, was approximately five feet, six 
inches tall, and was wearing dark clothes.  Sara Ventura was 
unable to identify the man she had seen from a subsequent 
photographic array provided by police; the defendant's 
photograph was included in that array. 
3 
 
seat of a Lexus automobile with the front passenger's door open.  
Tumer also noticed a dark-skinned man wearing a black shirt and 
light blue jeans near the front of the vehicle, running away 
while appearing to adjust the back of his shirt.  Tumer 
telephoned the police soon thereafter when he noticed that the 
victim had slumped forward and had blood on her neck. 
 
At approximately 12:47 P.M., Officer Kevin Krusas of the 
Worcester police department was dispatched to Fairfax Road, 
where he observed the victim seated in the driver's seat of her 
blue Lexus, but leaning across the front passenger seat.  The 
victim had been shot in the neck but still had a pulse, and fire 
fighters who arrived at the scene administered cardiopulmonary 
resuscitation.  The victim was transported to the hospital, 
where she remained in critical condition for six days until life 
support measures were withdrawn and she died. 
 
During their investigation, the police learned that Kenneth 
Cashman, a homeowner on Fairfax Road, had attached to his house 
a surveillance system consisting of several cameras that 
generated audio-video recordings of the surrounding areas.  The 
police viewed the recordings, and although none of the cameras 
recorded the shooting itself, the recordings showed the victim's 
blue Lexus as it arrived on Fairfax Road.  They also showed a 
male entering the front passenger seat of the Lexus; the Lexus 
being driven out of the video range of the cameras, but not out 
4 
 
of the system's audio range; and Ventura parking her vehicle on 
Fairfax Road. 
 
The police retrieved the victim's cellular telephone and 
discovered that the last incoming call the victim received came 
from a telephone registered to William Madison.  Using global 
positioning information received from Madison's cellular 
telephone carrier, the police were able to locate Madison at his 
apartment on Vernon Street Place in Worcester, where he lived 
with his mother; his girl friend, Kassie Ago; and her young son.  
On August 25, 2010, Detective Sergeant Gary Quitadamo and other 
Worcester police detectives went to Madison's home to speak with 
him regarding the shooting incident.  Madison agreed to go with 
them to the police station, where he was interviewed.2  While 
Madison was at the police station, police sought, received, and 
executed a search warrant for Madison's residence and seized 
marijuana, a cellular telephone registered to Madison, and a 
black, long-sleeved T-shirt near a washing machine.  The police 
had been informed by Madison's cellular telephone carrier that, 
within hours of the incident, Ago had contacted the carrier to 
change the existing telephone number and register the new number 
under a fictitious name. 
 
The following day, Madison and Ago were each interviewed by 
the police concerning the August 24 shooting incident, but 
                     
 
2 William Madison was not under arrest at that time. 
5 
 
neither of them provided any substantive information.  One month 
later, and after further investigation, the police arrested 
Madison and Ago in connection with the August 24 shooting 
incident.  On September 29, 2010, Madison and Ago, represented 
by separate counsel, entered into cooperation agreements with 
the Commonwealth pursuant to which each agreed to provide 
information about the shooting incident and to testify against 
the defendant in exchange for lesser sentences.  On October 7, 
the police also arrested Kenny Roman, a friend of Ago's; on 
January 7, 2012, represented by counsel, Roman entered into a 
cooperation agreement that called for him to provide information 
and testify against the defendant regarding the shooting 
incident in exchange for a lesser sentence.3 
 
Madison, Roman, and Ago (collectively, cooperating 
witnesses) each testified at the defendant's trial that he or 
she participated in a plan with the defendant and his older 
brother, Marcus Young, to rob someone of money and drugs and 
then split the proceeds.  Roman, who was a friend of the victim 
and knew her to be a marijuana dealer, suggested the victim as 
                     
 
3 Madison, Kassie Ago, and Kenny Roman had each been charged 
as an accessory to murder, a crime that carries a mandatory 
sentence of life imprisonment.  See G. L. c. 265, § 2; G. L. 
c. 274, § 2.  Pursuant to the cooperation agreements, all three 
of the witnesses were permitted to plead guilty to lesser 
offenses.  Madison and Ago received sentences in a house of 
correction; Roman received a sentence of from five to six years 
in State prison. 
6 
 
the target.  The plan was for the defendant to actually carry 
out the robbery.  Because the group believed -- based on 
information supplied by Roman -- that the victim might be armed, 
they agreed that the defendant should carry with him a gun; 
Madison supplied the gun. 
 
The plan was executed on August 24, 2010.  Ago contacted 
the victim, arranged for a purchase of marijuana, and told the 
victim that her friend would be picking it up.  The pickup was 
to be on Fairfax Road in Worcester.  The defendant, Madison, and 
Young left Madison's apartment to walk to Fairfax Road, the 
defendant walking a few feet ahead of Madison and Young.  When 
they were approximately 500 feet away from the destination, 
Madison and Young stopped and the defendant continued walking 
toward Fairfax Road to meet the victim.  Madison lost sight of 
the defendant before the defendant reached and entered the 
victim's blue Lexus.  The next time Madison saw the defendant, 
he was running past Madison toward Madison's apartment.  Madison 
and Young followed, running behind the defendant.  According to 
Madison and Ago, once back in the apartment, the defendant 
stated several times that he had shot the victim.  The defendant 
returned the gun to Madison, who placed it in Ago's purse.  Ago 
and Madison then drove the defendant and Young back to Young's 
apartment, where Madison gave the gun to Young, who placed it in 
7 
 
a drawer in his bedroom.  According to Ago, Young later disposed 
of the gun by burying it.4 
 
At the crime scene, the police recovered the following:  a 
can of tire sealant containing a hidden compartment filled with 
four plastic bags of marijuana from underneath the victim's 
Lexus near a rear tire; an envelope containing $250 in the 
driver's side door of the Lexus; a .380 caliber bullet casing in 
the driver's seat; and a spent projectile on the floor inside 
the vehicle that the Commonwealth's ballistician identified as 
being a hollow-point .380 bullet used in a semiautomatic 
firearm.  The black shirt the police had seized from Madison's 
apartment, identified by Ago as belonging to the defendant, was 
tested for blood and gunshot residue and tested negative for the 
presence of either. 
 
On October 6, 2010, police arrested the defendant, who was 
eighteen years old, at a school program and brought him to the 
Worcester police station for an interrogation in connection with 
the incident.  Worcester police Detective Michael Tarckini led 
the interrogation, which lasted approximately one hour and 
thirty-five minutes and was recorded on audio-video tape.5  
                     
 
4 We discuss in further detail, infra, the individual 
statements produced by each of the cooperating witnesses. 
 
 
5 The defendant was informed by Detective Michael Tarckini 
that the interrogation was being recorded, and he did not 
object. 
8 
 
Detective William Escobar and, briefly, Detective Lieutenant 
John Towns, both Worcester police officers, also participated in 
the interrogation.  At the outset, Tarckini administered Miranda 
warnings to the defendant; the defendant signed a written waiver 
form and agreed to speak to the police.  The defendant insisted 
to the detectives for some time that he had had no involvement 
in the August 24 shooting incident.  However, he later admitted 
that he participated in a plan devised by Ago and Madison to rob 
the victim, but that the robbery failed after the victim became 
aware that he was attempting to rob her.  He repeatedly denied 
shooting the victim.  He told the police that he got out of the 
victim's automobile and ran away after he realized he could not 
obtain the drugs, that he did not have a gun, and that he heard 
gunshots as he was running away.6 
 
On December 7, 2010, the defendant was indicted for murder 
in the first degree, G. L. c. 265, § 1, and attempt to commit 
armed robbery, G. L. c. 274, § 6.  On January 4, 2012, the 
defendant filed a motion to suppress his statement to the police 
on the ground that the statement made was involuntary as a 
result of improper interrogation tactics used by the police in 
                     
 
6 At a point soon thereafter in the interrogation, the 
defendant asked to speak to an attorney, and the questioning 
ended.  The redacted version of the defendant's interview shown 
to the jury included his invocation.  We discuss the defendant's 
interrogation in some detail, infra. 
9 
 
eliciting a confession.7  An evidentiary hearing was held before 
a Superior Court judge at which Tarckini and Quitadamo 
testified.  That judge denied the motion on June 12, 2012.  The 
defendant's trial commenced before a jury and a different judge 
on September 24, 2012,8 and on October 2, the jury found the 
defendant guilty of murder in the first degree on theories of 
extreme atrocity or cruelty and felony-murder, as well as of 
attempt to commit armed robbery.  He was sentenced to life in 
prison without the possibility of parole on the murder charge 
and a concurrent term of from four to five years on the charge 
of attempt.  The defendant filed a timely notice of appeal to 
this court. 
 
2.  Discussion.  a.  Admission of the defendant's 
statement.  In this appeal, the defendant challenges the 
admission of his statement to the police on two separate 
grounds:  (1) during the custodial interrogation9 the police 
                     
 
7 The defendant's motion to suppress did not challenge the 
admissibility of his statement on the ground that the police had 
failed to honor his request to terminate questioning. 
 
 
8 The defendant was tried alone on the charges of murder in 
the first degree and attempt to commit robbery.  Madison, Ago, 
and Roman each testified against the defendant at trial, 
pursuant to separate cooperation agreements.  Young, the 
defendant's brother, did not testify at the defendant's trial. 
 
 
9 When the police interviewed the defendant, he already had 
been placed under arrest; as the judge who heard the motion to 
suppress (motion judge) concluded, there was no question that 
the interrogation by the police was custodial. 
10 
 
conducted, the defendant exercised his right to cut off 
questioning but the police improperly did not honor that 
exercise; and (2) the statement was induced by falsehoods, 
trickery, and promises of leniency improperly put forth by the 
defendant's police interrogators, and therefore was not 
voluntary.10  Before we consider the defendant's claims, we set 
forth additional facts about the interrogation. 
 
i.  Facts.  After administering Miranda warnings to the 
defendant and obtaining his agreement that he understood the 
warnings and was willing to talk to the police, Tarckini, with 
periodic questions or statements inserted by Escobar, told the 
defendant the following:  the police had video footage of him 
sitting in the victim's Lexus and running from that vehicle 
after the gunshot was heard; there was deoxyribonucleic acid 
(DNA) and fingerprint evidence belonging to him in the Lexus;11 
                     
 
10 The defendant argues in his brief that both grounds on 
which he challenges the admission of his statement are to be 
reviewed under the harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standard.  
That is not correct.  As indicated previously, the defendant's 
pretrial motion to suppress raised only the second ground; the 
first was not presented in the motion or raised at trial, and 
therefore it is not preserved.  We review this first ground to 
determine whether admission of the statement created a 
substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.  See 
Commonwealth v. Wright, 411 Mass. 678, 682 (1992), S.C., 469 
Mass. 447 (2014). 
 
 
11 Neither at the time of the interrogation nor at any later 
time did the police have deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or 
fingerprint evidence that connected the defendant to the 
victim's Lexus.  The audio-video footage from the cameras on 
11 
 
people had identified him as the shooter; and the police had 
recovered his eyeglasses from Madison's apartment with the 
defendant's DNA on them.12  For approximately thirty minutes, the 
defendant's repeated responses to these assertions by the police 
were to the effect that he did not know what they were talking 
about, and he denied knowing the victim or the fact that she had 
been shot and killed.  Then, the following exchange occurred: 
Defendant:  "I'm done." 
 
Tarckini:  "You're done with what?" 
 
Defendant:  "I'm done talking.  I don't wanna talk no 
more." 
 
Tarckini:  "You don't wanna talk anymore?" 
 
Defendant:  "No.  'Cause y'all really don't believe me." 
 
Tarckini:  "It's -- We already tried to explain that to 
you, Donovan.  I don't think you get it." 
 
Defendant:  "Yeah, I understand." 
 
Tarckini:  "It's not believing." 
 
Defendant:  "I understand, sir." 
 
Tarckini:  "It's not believing.  It's what we know." 
 
Defendant:  "Okay." 
                                                                  
Kenneth Cashman's house showed a person enter the Lexus, and 
thereafter showed a male running away from the area where the 
Lexus was parked, but the video depiction itself was not clear 
enough to permit an actual identification of the person or 
persons shown. 
 
 
12 This statement about the eyeglasses was false.  Although 
the defendant wore eyeglasses, the police never recovered 
eyeglasses in connection with their investigation of this case. 
12 
 
 
Tarckini:  "What the facts are." 
 
Defendant:  "What the facts show." 
 
Tarckini:  "Right." 
 
Defendant:  "Right." 
 
Tarckini:  "Right?" 
 
Defendant:  "Yes." 
 
Tarckini:  "We don't make stuff up.  We don't make people 
talk to us.  We don't make people pick people out.  We 
don't put people's fingerprints inside of a car.  We don't 
make up videos.  The facts are the facts." 
 
When the defendant did not respond, Tarckini continued: 
Tarckini:  "When we talk to people, we ask certain 
questions to gauge your truthfulness, things that I know 
you're not gonna lie about like name, address, who you live 
with, mom, dad, date of birth, stuff like that.  Then when 
we ask you questions about other things, your body reacts a 
certain way.  It's just a natural thing.  You can't help 
it.  Everyone does it.  So that's what I -- when you answer 
my questions and I say you're lying to me, your body's 
telling me that.  Not only your words but your body.  You 
understand?" 
 
The defendant, who had remained completely silent during 
Tarckini's speech, spoke only to answer "yes" to the question 
whether he understood.  Tarckini again continued: 
Tarckini:  "You have the opportunity now to give your side 
of the story, to maybe lighten the load, get a little bit 
off yourself.  And you're being a tough guy, in the sense 
that you're just gonna -- you're gonna dig in and sit in a 
hole and wait out the storm.  And I don't think you realize 
all the things that are gonna happen going forward.  We're 
trying to give you information so you can process all that.  
What are you thinking about?" 
 
Defendant:  "Life." 
13 
 
 
Tarckini:  "Think life's been tough to you?" 
 
(The defendant nods, indicating yes.) 
 
Tarckini:  "Yeah?  Sometimes life isn't fair, man.  
Sometimes we're in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
Sometimes circumstances just put you in a bad way.  I kinda 
think that's what happened here." 
 
Approximately fifty seconds of silence passed, after which the 
defendant stated:  "I didn't shoot nobody," and then he 
proceeded to make a series of inculpatory responses to questions 
by the officers.  He described a plan among Ago, Madison, and 
himself to rob the victim, and detailed what happened after he 
got into the victim's automobile, including that he was in it on 
the day of the shooting.  He stated that the victim picked him 
up in her automobile, they drove around together before parking 
on the street, and the victim asked him for the money multiple 
times, saying that the defendant better not be robbing her; that 
when he reached for the can containing the marijuana, the victim 
pulled it away and held it outside the window, out of his reach; 
that the victim then called out for help; and that when he 
realized he could not obtain the drugs, he fled and heard 
gunshots as he ran away.  He consistently denied having a gun, 
seeing the victim with a gun, and shooting her. 
 
Approximately twenty minutes after the defendant made these 
statements, the two detectives left the defendant alone in the 
interrogation room for approximately six minutes; the video and 
14 
 
audio recording system were still operating.  The defendant sat 
in the same chair he had been in for the entire interview, and 
muttered something to himself to the effect of, "Why'd you shoot 
her?  You didn't even shoot the bitch.  You didn't shoot her.  
You didn't fucking shoot her."13  When the detectives returned, 
the defendant admitted that after the attempted robbery, he went 
back to Madison's house to change his clothes, and the 
interrogation ended soon thereafter, following the defendant's 
request for an attorney.14 
                     
 
13 There is much dispute regarding the exact statement made 
by the defendant while he was alone in the interrogation room.  
Apparently after listening to a version of the audio-video 
recording that had been enhanced in some fashion to clarify the 
audio feature (enhanced version), the motion judge found that 
the defendant stated, "Why'd you shoot her?  Why'd you shoot the 
bitch?"  At trial, both Tarckini and Detective Sergeant Gary 
Quitadamo were permitted to testify to their own understanding 
of what the defendant said, based on their listening to the 
enhanced version -- which was the version admitted in evidence 
as a trial exhibit.  In his closing argument, the prosecutor 
argued that the defendant said, "Why did you shoot her?  I 
didn't even shoot the bitch.  I didn't shoot her. . . .  You 
can't fucking shoot her."  Our own review of the enhanced 
recording has led us to conclude that the defendant's statement 
was the one we have quoted in the text. 
 
 
14 The audio-video equipment in the interrogation room 
continued to record after the defendant requested an attorney.  
Our review of that portion of the unredacted recording indicates 
that the officers, including Detective Lieutenant John Towns, 
continued to engage the defendant regarding the investigation of 
the case.  The following exchange occurred between the officers 
and the defendant outside the interrogation room and after the 
defendant had requested an attorney: 
 
15 
 
 
ii.  The defendant's claims.  The defendant contends that 
although he initially waived his Miranda rights, he later 
invoked his constitutional right to remain silent when he said 
that he was "done talking," an invocation that the police did 
not "scrupulously honor."  Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 
444-445, 473-474, 478-479 (1966).  See Michigan v. Mosley, 423 
U.S. 96, 102-104 (1975).  The argument is framed as one of 
ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failure to move to 
suppress the admission of the defendant's inculpatory responses 
to the police based on this invocation.  See Commonwealth v. 
Williams, 453 Mass. 203, 207 (2009), citing Commonwealth v. 
Wright, 411 Mass. 678, 682 (1992), S.C., 469 Mass. 447 (2014).  
                                                                  
Towns:  "What we wanted to have an opportunity for you to 
do was tell us if something happened.  Alright.  You gotta 
know that these guys are telling the truth." 
 
Defendant:  [inaudible] 
 
Tarckini:  "We're not trying to trick you." 
 
Towns:  "Listen.  Hey, listen." 
 
Tarckini:  "Listen to us." 
 
Towns:  "Hey, if you change your mind, wanna talk to these 
guys, alright, tell us downstairs.  A bad decision . . . 
[inaudible].  If something happened inside the car that 
wasn't like you just pull out the gun and start shooting, 
you know what I mean, if it's not what happened, then you 
need to have an opportunity to say that.  And today gives 
you a good form of credibility to say that.  Mitigates for 
sure." 
 
Tarckini:  "We're not trying to trick you." 
16 
 
The Commonwealth argues that the defendant's claim must fail 
because, even if trial counsel had brought a motion to suppress 
raising a claim of invocation of the right to remain silent, the 
motion would not have succeeded.  See Williams, supra.  In the 
Commonwealth's view, the defendant's statement that he was done 
talking was an ambiguous remark rather than a clear, unequivocal 
invocation of his right to remain silent, and the fact that the 
defendant thereafter continued speaking supports the conclusion 
that he did not intend to invoke the right when he made the 
remark about being "done."  We take the same view as the 
defendant. 
 
"It is clear that a defendant has not only the right to 
remain silent from the beginning but also a continuing right to 
cut off, at any time, any questioning that does take place."  
Commonwealth v. Bradshaw, 385 Mass. 244, 265 (1982).  However, 
if a defendant has waived his or her Miranda warnings and later 
wishes to remain silent, the invocation of that right "must be 
clear and unambiguous[], such that 'a reasonable police officer 
in the circumstances would understand the statement to be an 
invocation of the Miranda right.' . . .  Whether the defendant 
has met this burden is a fact-specific determination to be made 
based on the totality of the circumstances" (citation omitted).  
Commonwealth v. Howard, 469 Mass. 721, 731 (2014), citing 
17 
 
Commonwealth v. Almonte, 444 Mass. 511, 519, cert. denied, 546 
U.S. 1040 (2005). 
 
In these circumstances, the defendant's statement, "I'm 
done," by itself, was ambiguous, coming as it did as a 
nonresponse to a long series of statements by Tarckini and 
Escobar about what the police already knew.  In this context, 
Tarckini's question to the defendant, "You're done with what?" 
was an appropriate effort to clarify.  See Commonwealth v. 
Santos, 463 Mass. 273, 286 (2012).  See also Commonwealth v. 
Hearns, 467 Mass. 707, 718 (2014).  But the defendant's 
immediate and direct answer, "I'm done talking.  I don't wanna 
talk no more," was certainly a clarifying response to Tarckini's 
inquiry, one that resolved completely the previous ambiguity, 
and asserted in no uncertain terms the defendant's desire and 
intention to end the interrogation.  See Howard, 469 Mass. at 
733 n.13.15  However, instead of accepting the defendant's 
                     
 
15 In Commonwealth v. Howard, 469 Mass. 721, 733 n.13 
(2014), this court stated: 
 
"[W]e take the word 'stop' to mean what it says.  A 
suspect's or defendant's use of the word 'stop,' or the 
phrase, 'I would like to stop at that point,' in this 
context should raise a red flag for an interrogating police 
officer -- a signal that it is necessary at the very least 
for the officer immediately to pause in order to reflect on 
what the defendant has just said, and to consider whether 
the defendant is seeking to invoke his right to remain 
silent" (emphasis in original). 
 
18 
 
invocation and terminating the interview, Tarckini, after 
repeating the defendant's answer,16 launched into a lengthy 
monologue in an apparent effort to convince the defendant to 
keep talking -- an effort that succeeded.  This was not proper.  
See Hearns, supra at 719.17 
                                                                  
The same is true of the phrases, "I'm done talking" and "I don't 
wanna talk no more." 
 
 
16 We have stated that, when a defendant makes an ambiguous 
statement concerning an intent to stop questioning, the police, 
in seeking to clarify the defendant's meaning, may appropriately 
ask a clarifying question, but ordinarily the effort to clarify 
should be limited to one question.  See Commonwealth v. Santos, 
463 Mass. 273, 286-287 (2012).  Here, Tarckini followed the 
defendant's clarifying answer with another question that 
repeated the defendant's last answer, "You don't wanna talk no 
more?" -- to which the defendant responded, "No," and then added 
a reason:  "'Cause y'all really don't believe me."  We do not 
share the Commonwealth's view that Tarckini's follow-up question 
was simply an exercise of "good police practice."  Rather, the 
question appears to have been an unnecessary repeat of a 
question that already had been answered very clearly.  Moreover, 
the defendant's response was consistent with his prior statement 
of intent to stop the questioning, and not, as the Commonwealth 
suggests, one that merely reflected the defendant's ongoing 
frustration with the refusal of the police to believe what he 
was saying.  Postinvocation responses "to further interrogation 
may not be used to cast retrospective doubt on the clarity of 
the initial [invocation] itself" (citation omitted).  Id. at 
287. 
 
 
17 Although the defendant clearly was willing to speak 
before stating to the police that he was done talking, he said 
very few words in response to Tarckini's soliloquy extending for 
several minutes after that statement, which further indicates 
the defendant's intention to remain silent.  Contrast 
Commonwealth v. Senior, 433 Mass. 453, 463 (2001), quoting 
Commonwealth v. Pennellatore, 392 Mass. 382, 387 (1984) 
(defendant's request to stop questioning "must be interpreted in 
the context of his willingness to talk both immediately prior to 
and subsequent to" that point). 
19 
 
 
We conclude that the defendant has met his burden to 
establish that he clearly stated his intent to cut off further 
questioning by the police; "his choice of words fell well within 
the range of cases where we have found a clear and unequivocal 
invocation."  Hearns, 467 Mass. at 718.  See, e.g., id. at 717 
(defendant's postwaiver statement, "Well then, I don't want to 
talk.  I haven't got nothing to say," was clear invocation).  
See also Howard, 469 Mass. at 732-733 (stating, "I would like to 
stop at that point" sufficient to invoke right to silence); 
Commonwealth v. Santana, 465 Mass. 270, 277, 282 (2013) 
(postwaiver statement that defendant could not "say any more" 
was clear invocation of right to silence); Santos, 463 Mass. at 
285 (postwaiver statement that "I'm not going on with this 
conversation" in itself constituted clear invocation).  The 
police, however, continued to interrogate the defendant, and the 
defendant responded to their questions for the next fifty-three 
minutes, making a number of inculpatory responses. 
 
"[T]he admissibility of statements obtained after the 
person in custody has decided to remain silent depends under 
Miranda on whether his 'right to cut off questioning' was 
'scrupulously honored.'"  Mosley, 423 U.S. at 104.  The factors 
identified in Mosley to evaluate this issue all point to the 
conclusion that scrupulous honoring of the defendant's right did 
20 
 
not occur here.18  That is, the police did not immediately cease 
questioning the defendant; the questioning continued almost 
without a pause, and without a fresh set of Miranda warnings; 
and the scope and subject matter of the interrogation remained 
the same as before the invocation -- the defendant's involvement 
in the victim's death.  See id. at 106-107.  See also 
Commonwealth v. Taylor, 374 Mass. 426, 433-434 (1978).  In these 
circumstances, a motion to suppress the defendant's statement to 
the police on the ground of invocation of the right to remain 
silent would have been successful, see, e.g., id. at 433-436, 
and trial counsel's failure to raise this ground constituted 
error.  See Wright, 411 Mass. at 682. 
 
The defendant advances a separate but related claim that 
what he stated while he was alone in the interrogation room 
(volunteered statement) should not have been admitted in 
evidence.  The defendant argues that the volunteered statement 
was wholly ambiguous and that, in the circumstances, its 
admission was more prejudicial than probative, and the trial 
                     
 
18 We have described the Mosley factors as follows:  whether 
"the police (1) had immediately ceased questioning; (2) resumed 
questioning 'only after the passage of a significant period of 
time and the provision of a fresh set of warnings'; and (3) 
limited the scope of the later interrogation 'to a crime that 
had not been a subject of the earlier interrogation'" (citation 
omitted).  Commonwealth v. Clarke, 461 Mass. 336, 344 (2012).  
See Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 106-107 (1975). 
21 
 
judge abused his discretion in admitting it.19  Our plenary 
review of this case pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 33E, persuades 
us that the volunteered statement was not admissible for a 
reason different from the one or ones advanced by the defendant.  
See Commonwealth v. Bell, 460 Mass. 294, 295, 306 (2011), S.C., 
473 Mass. 131 (2015); Commonwealth v. Silva-Santiago, 453 Mass. 
782, 805-810 (2009). 
 
As discussed, when the defendant invoked his right to 
terminate questioning, the police were required immediately to 
end the interview.  At that point, all questioning should have 
ceased, and it follows that the recording of the interview also 
should have ceased.  That is not what happened.  Rather, the two 
detectives continued to interrogate the defendant and the 
recording equipment continued to operate, including during the 
time, postinvocation, that the detectives left the defendant 
sitting for approximately six minutes by himself in the 
interrogation room, during which time he made the volunteered 
statement.  The critical question is "whether . . . the evidence 
                     
19 The defendant contends that this issue was preserved.  
That is not clear.  The Commonwealth points out that, although 
the defendant's trial counsel mentioned the lack of clarity 
about the meaning of the defendant's volunteered statement, the 
principal reason he objected to its admission at trial was the 
same issue he had raised in his motion to suppress:  lack of 
voluntariness.  As next explained in the text, we decide that 
the volunteered statement was not admissible on grounds 
different from any suggested by the defendant, and therefore, we 
need not decide the preservation question. 
22 
 
to which instant objection is made has been come at by 
exploitation of [the primary] illegality or instead by means 
sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint" 
(citation omitted).  Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 
488 (1963).  See Bradshaw, 385 Mass. at 258.  It is clear that 
without the audio-video recording, there would be no evidence of 
the defendant's statement -- indeed, as one of the police 
officers, Quitadamo, testified, the only way the police were 
able to make out the defendant's words in the volunteered 
statement at all was through enhancement of the sound quality of 
the audio recording by using some technological means to reduce 
the ambient noise.  The Commonwealth should not be permitted to 
take advantage of a recording that should not have been made by 
introducing the recording in evidence.  Cf. G. L. c. 272, 
§ 99 P.  Adherence to the principle that the defendant's 
constitutional right to cut off questioning must be 
"scrupulously honored" leads us to conclude that, in the 
particular circumstances presented here, all portions of the 
defendant's statement procured after he invoked his right to 
remain silent were inadmissible, including the volunteered 
statement.20 
                     
 
20 The defendant's second challenge to the admissibility of 
his statement rests on the ground that the police undermined the 
voluntariness of his statement by using lies, tricks, and 
implied promises of leniency to obtain the statement.  The 
23 
 
 
The remaining question is whether the erroneous admission 
of the defendant's statement, including the volunteered 
statement, gave rise to a substantial likelihood of a 
miscarriage of justice because the statement was likely to have 
affected the jury's verdict.  See Wright, 411 Mass. at 682.  We 
conclude that it did.  The defendant admitted to participating 
directly in the group plan to rob the victim, and more 
particularly to being the one who was charged with carrying it 
out, and although he denied shooting the victim, the jury were 
certainly free to disbelieve him on that point.  "[A] 
defendant's own confession is probably the most probative and 
damaging evidence that can be admitted against him."21  Arizona 
v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 296 (1991), quoting Bruton v. 
United States, 391 U.S. 123, 139-140 (1968) (White, J., 
dissenting).  It is true that the three cooperating witnesses 
each described the defendant's involvement in the plan to rob 
                                                                  
motion judge concluded that the police tactics were permissible 
and did not affect the voluntariness of the defendant's 
statement.  Given our conclusion that the defendant's statement 
was inadmissible because of his invocation of the right to 
silence, we need not resolve the defendant's involuntariness 
claim. 
 
 
21 It certainly may be inferred that the prosecutor 
considered the defendant's statement to be important, weaving it 
into his closing argument at several different points.  See 
Howard, 469 Mass. at 749.  And during their deliberations, the 
jury asked to view the audio-video recording of the 
interrogation and the enhanced audio recording of the 
defendant's volunteered statement. 
24 
 
the victim, and two of them quoted the defendant as saying that 
he shot the victim, but each of the three was also a direct 
participant in the robbery plan and had been charged as an 
accessory to the victim's murder, and the three witnesses' 
testimony was conflicting with respect to the defendant's role 
in the scheme:  according to Roman, the idea to rob the victim 
came entirely from Ago and Madison; Madison testified that the 
idea was Roman's; and only Ago testified that the defendant and 
his brother were the source of the idea.  Moreover, it was 
undisputed that the gun used in the shooting was Madison's; that 
Roman was the direct contact to the victim and the source of the 
information that she might be armed; and that the idea to carry 
a gun was not the defendant's.  The ability of defense counsel 
to take advantage of these points, however, was impaired because 
the defendant's own statement directly corroborated much of the 
witnesses' version of events.  Finally, this is not a case in 
which other types of evidence, independent of the cooperating 
witnesses' testimony, pointed convincingly to the defendant's 
guilt.  No forensic evidence -- for example, DNA or fingerprints 
-- connected the defendant to being inside the victim's vehicle 
or being involved in the incident more generally; the murder 
weapon was never recovered; Ventura and Tumer, the two witnesses 
who saw a male fleeing the scene, could not identify the 
defendant as the assailant; and the audio-video recordings taken 
25 
 
from Cashman's home did not enable a viewer to discern the 
assailant's identity.  In view of all the circumstances, we 
conclude that the admission of the defendant's statement likely 
influenced the jury's verdicts, and therefore created a 
substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.  The 
defendant's convictions must be reversed and the case remanded 
for a new trial.22 
 
b.  Review under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  We address an 
additional issue raised by our review of this case under G. L. 
c. 278, § 33E.  The jury found the defendant guilty of murder in 
the first degree under theories of felony-murder and extreme 
atrocity or cruelty.23  In our view, the trial evidence did not 
adequately support a guilty finding under the second theory.  
The victim was killed by a single gunshot that entered her neck 
as she sat in her automobile.  Considering the evidence in the 
                     
 
22 A final point about the defendant's statement is in 
order.  After waiving his Miranda rights, the defendant spoke to 
the police for approximately thirty-five minutes before invoking 
his right to silence.  During that portion of the interrogation, 
the defendant repeatedly and consistently responded to the 
interrogating officers' statements about their self-described 
knowledge of the defendant's involvement in the victim's killing 
with denials.  Although this portion of the statement preceded 
the defendant's invocation, it should not be admitted at any 
retrial of this case.  Accusations by the police, met with 
denials by a defendant, are not admissible by themselves.  See 
Commonwealth v. Spencer, 465 Mass. 32, 48 (2013); Commonwealth 
v. Womack, 457 Mass. 268, 274 (2010). 
 
 
23 The Commonwealth also proceeded on a theory of deliberate 
premeditation, but the jury did not find the defendant guilty 
under that theory.  See note 26, infra. 
26 
 
light most favorable to the Commonwealth, there was evidence, 
supplied by the defendant in his statement, that he had been in 
the victim's automobile right before she was shot.  In addition, 
Madison and Ago testified that when the defendant returned to 
Madison's apartment from Fairfax Road, he stated that he had 
shot the victim, and there was evidence that a few seconds 
before the shot was fired, a yell or scream by a female voice 
could be heard.  These witnesses also testified that the 
defendant knew the gun was loaded.  Other than what has just 
been summarized, however, there was no evidence presented about 
the actual circumstances of the shooting.24  Moreover, although 
Madison testified that the bullets in the gun were hollow-point 
bullets, there was no evidence that the defendant knew that the 
gun contained hollow-point bullets.25  Furthermore, the evidence 
indicated, without dispute, that the gun in question was 
Madison's, that Madison himself had loaded it, and that it was 
the defendant's brother's idea for the defendant to bring a gun 
in response to information supplied by Roman that the victim 
might be armed.  In terms of the Cunneen factors, see 
                     
 
24 In addition, as discussed supra, the defendant's 
statement to the police about being in the vehicle with the 
victim should not have been admitted at trial. 
 
 
25 There also was no evidence about whether the particular 
injuries sustained by the victim were likely to have been caused 
by the use of a hollow-point bullet, as opposed to some other 
kind of bullet. 
27 
 
Commonwealth v. Cunneen, 389 Mass. 216, 227 (1983), we conclude 
that the record contains no evidence from which the jury 
properly could find that the defendant was indifferent to or 
took pleasure in the victim's death, that the victim was 
conscious after being shot, that she sustained extensive 
physical injuries apart from the gunshot, that there were 
multiple blows, that excessive force was used, that the 
instrument used to kill her was unusual, or that the means that 
brought about her death were disproportional to the means needed 
to cause death.  In any retrial, therefore, the Commonwealth may 
proceed only under the theory of felony-murder.26 
 
3.  Conclusion.  The defendant's convictions are reversed, 
the verdicts are set aside, and the case is remanded to the 
Superior Court for further proceedings consistent with this 
opinion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered. 
                     
 
26 The Commonwealth may not proceed on the theory of extreme 
atrocity or cruelty for the reasons discussed in the text.  With 
respect to the theory of deliberate premeditation, this theory 
was presented to the jury and listed on the verdict slip, but 
the jury left the line associated with the theory blank.  After 
the foreperson stated the jury's verdicts on the two charges 
(murder and attempted armed robbery), the defendant requested 
that the jurors be polled individually.  When polled, each 
deliberating juror stated that he or she found the defendant not 
guilty of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate 
premeditation.  Accordingly, double jeopardy principles preclude 
the Commonwealth from proceeding against the defendant on this 
theory in any retrial.  Contrast Commonwealth v. Carlino, 449 
Mass. 71, 76-80 (2007).  Contrast also Commonwealth v. Brown, 
470 Mass. 595, 603-604 (2015).