Court Opinion

ID: 9711301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:28:43.3318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:03.512899
License: Public Domain

*210Hennessey, C.J.
(dissenting, with whom Nolan and Lynch, JJ., join). I dissent. This case is a close one, but I think that the exclusion of the testimony of the three witnesses was within the judge’s discretion. The judge applied the criteria that we have endorsed as relevant factors in assessing corroboration: the timing of the declarations by the declarant Fuller, the spontaneity of his declarations, an apparent motive of the declarant to misrepresent the matter, the circumstances in which the statements were repeated, and whether the declarations were disinterested. Commonwealth v. Drew, 397 Mass. 65, 76 (1986). Commonwealth v. Doherty, 394 Mass. 341, 347 (1985).
At a voir dire hearing, three witnesses were willing to testify that Fuller had confessed to the crime. Fuller’s statements were neither spontaneous not contemporaneous with the defendant’s or the declarant’s arrest. See Commonwealth v. Drew, supra at 77. Indeed, immediately, after his arrest, Fuller denied that he had participated, saying, “Wait a minute, . . . take a good look at me, I didn’t do anything, remember. ... I had nothing to do with this, look at me good.” The lack of details about the crime and the lack of factual details about his involvement in the crime also detract from the credibility of Fuller’s statements. Id. That the declarant, Fuller, and the defendant are cousins suggests an ulterior motive for the statements. For purposes of deciding the admissibility of their testimony the judge was bound to concede the credibility of the witnesses before him, but he appropriately, on adequate grounds, decided that the statements of the declarant Fuller were untrustworthy. The judge could, and did, properly exercise his discretion in so finding. Commonwealth v. Carr, 373 Mass. 617, 624 (1977) (judges are obliged to exercise discriminating judgment in applying the corroboration requirement).
After the voir dire hearing had been completed and the judge had ruled, the trial resumed before the jury. A witness named Edwards testified that Fuller, before the arrests, had admitted that he, and not the defendant, committed the crime. The court treats this fourth witness’s testimony as significant, but even assuming that Fuller’s statement to Edwards was spontaneous and contemporaneous and sufficiently corroborated, it did not lend those qualities to Fuller’s alleged statements to the other three witnesses.