Court Opinion

ID: 9710031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:00:10.708627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:53.652973
License: Public Domain

Gillerman, J.
(dissenting, with whom Greenberg, J., joins). Hearsay evidence of fresh complaint is admissible to corroborate the complainant’s testimony because it “allows rape victims who . . . complain promptly to eliminate any unwarranted skepticism arising from lack of evidence of a prompt complaint.” Commonwealth v. Licata, 412 Mass. 654, 658 (1992). The doctrine is persistently troublesome because it is both “mischievous,” Commonwealth v. Dion, 30 Mass. App. Ct. 406, 412 (1991), and remedial. It is mischievous unless the complaint is “truly ‘fresh’ “as time extends itself, a complaint loses character as a spontaneous accusation after grievous wrong; moreover, opportunity grows for invention or distortion of an event by mistake, twist of memory, fantasizing, contrivance, etc.” Id. at 412, 413. See also Commonwealth v. Gardner, 30 Mass. App. Ct. 515, 526-527 (1991).1 The doctrine is remedial because it permits a response to “the societal tendency to disbelieve sexual assault *698victims and to presume that a rape victim will make a prompt complaint.” Commonwealth v. Licata, 412 Mass. at 658. But where the fresh complaint is not obviously fresh, the risk of prevarication may outweigh the benefit of corroborative testimony. The judge has the responsibility to resolve this common, vexing problem by deciding whether to admit the hearsay testimony. See Commonwealth v. Gardner, 30 Mass. App. Ct. at 524.
Where the complainant is an adult, “freshness” is usually a matter of hours or days, and the problem is not acute. See the appendices to the Dion opinion. 30 Mass. App. Ct. at 416-417. The rub comes where, as here, the complainant is a child, and the requirement of hours or days is extended to months or years. See Commonwealth v. Fleury, 417 Mass. 810, 814-815 (1994) (in cases involving children, “[cjourts have been flexible in applying the usual fresh complaint strictures . . .”). The rationale is understandable: cases where a child is the complainant “constitute a factually distinct branch of the fresh complaint doctrine . . . [because] special consideration [is given] to the natural fear, ignorance, and susceptibility to intimidations that is unique to a young child’s make-up.” Id. at 814, quoting from Commonwealth v. Amirault, 404 Mass. 221, 229 (1989).
The cases vary considerably in their details,2 but in general the requirement of promptness has been relaxed where the child complainant is too frightened to tell of the abusive events because the defendant, often a family member, has threatened the child with dire consequences if the sexual abuse is mentioned.3 When the threats, the fear, and the intimidation end — commonly when the defendant severs rela*699tions with the family — disclosure frequently follows, presumably because of a child’s natural inclination to seek comfort from the terror of sexual abuse. It is this extended period of nondisclosure that the judge must analyze before coming to a decision. Does the proffered reason for the delay, for example, reveal that the defendant effectively suppressed any complaint the child would likely have expressed? If not — that is, if the complainant did not intend to accuse the defendant until years later under entirely different circumstances — then the doctrine of fresh complaint has no place in the trial of the case. It is only the promptness of a complaint (including any excused delay) that effectively meets societal “skepticism arising from lack of evidence of a prompt complaint,” Commonwealth v. Licata, 412 Mass. at 658, for a stale complaint raises the possibility that the accusation may be an afterthought, motivated by a grievance arising out of a later, unrelated event.4
With these considerations in mind, we turn to the facts. The majority would excuse the delay in disclosure because Claudia “was afraid her parents would find out, be upset, and, perhaps, ‘kick her out.’ ” I believe that this misunderstands and misinterprets the testimony. In colloquy between the judge and Auerilo, Claudia’s therapist, during the voir dire of Auerilo, the judge, discussing Claudia’s behavior, said, “[I]f there was, in capital letters, a single precipitating problem in her life, it was the tumultuous behavior at home, the fighting between mother and father, the split-up and the break-up, and some of the kids going one way, and her, the other kids going the other way . . . [that] motivated her . . . to have sex with . . . [the defendant]. In fairness, I should tell you she has already testified to that. She said there was a void in her life, and he made her feel comfortable, and she got to want to be with him.” Further, there was no evidence that the defendant behaved violently toward Claudia. As *700noted, Claudia was aware of the significance of what she and the defendant were doing. “Am I crazy or are you crazy?” she asked the defendant before their second sexual encounter.
It is plain to me, as I believe it was to the judge, that the explanation for the long-delayed disclosure was Claudia’s desire to conceal and perpetuate her secret relationship with the defendant. Her only fear was that if her parents “found out” they would bring an end to her relationship with the defendant — a relationship that she felt, as the judge said, filled a “void in her life.” In my view, admitting fresh complaint testimony is truly mischievous when the judge, as here, permits a long-delayed disclosure where that delay is chosen by the complainant, not out of fear, but solely to conceal and protect her relationship to the defendant. On this understanding of the facts, which I believe to be correct, the period of nondisclosure starts with the first sexual encounter in October, 1984. The disclosure to Auerilo was in February, 1986. On that basis, I conclude that this case is controlled by Commonwealth v. Dion, 30 Mass. App. Ct. at 414. The fact that the disclosure to Auerilo was eventually made in the course of therapy, and not as a complaint or accusation at all, only adds to the conclusion that the judge’s decision to admit Auerilo’s testimony was error.
There is one further difficulty with the majority’s decision. Costello, as the majority opinion notes, moved out of the Johnson home sometime in April, 1985. Thus ten months passed by before Claudia revealed the relationship to Auer-ilo, and it was not until sometime in mid-1987 that Claudia told her mother upon hearing of the defendant’s paternity action. If, for any reason I am unable to see, one regards Claudia’s initial silence as the product of the defendant’s threatening behavior, certainly when the defendant left the house the intimidation ended, leaving no explanation for Claudia’s continued silence other than her uncoerced decision to tell nothing of what happened in the past.
The judge’s error in admitting hearsay evidence of a “complaint” that was stale by choice and not by fear or intimida*701tion was highly prejudicial. The jury asked for and received the transcript of Auerilo’s testimony. Whatever reasonable doubt that may have existed at that point dissipated under the weight of the testimony of an expert psychiatric social worker. The defendant should be entitled to a new trial. See Commonwealth v. Dion, 30 Mass. App. Ct. at 414 n.10.

 The Supreme Judicial Court has also noted that there is a potential danger that the jury will use the evidence as proof that the offense actually occurred rather than for the limited purpose of corroboration. See Commonwealth v. Lavalley, 410 Mass. 641, 646 (1991).

 The cases are collected in the appendices to Commonwealth v. Dion, supra, and Commonwealth v. Johnson, 35 Mass. 211, 219-220 (1993).

 In the case of a very young child, ignorance of what is going on may explain the delay in disclosure. Here, however, we have a distinctly mature minor who thoroughly appreciated the significance of what she and the defendant were doing. As the majority note, Claudia, on the second occasion of intercourse, “insisted that they leave the upstairs for fear they would be discovered.” Once downstairs, she asked the defendant, “Am I crazy or are you crazy?”

 In this case, for example, charges against the defendant were not brought until after Claudia complained to her mother, but, as the majority notes, that complaint was precipitated by the paternity action instituted in 1987 by the defendant.