Court Opinion

ID: 9527455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:30:42.149622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:48.160139
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(dissenting). In Commonwealth v. King, 387 Mass. 464 (1982), a case in which the defendant was charged with sexually molesting a young girl, this court held that evidence of similar crimes by the defendant against the victim’s brother was admissible in the trial judge’s discretion because it was “logically probative,” “corroborated the victim’s testimony” concerning the defendant’s conduct toward her, and “rendered not improbable that the acts charged might have occurred.” Id. at 472. In Commonwealth v. Helfant, 398 Mass. 214 (1986), the defendant, a physician, was convicted of rape and drugging a person for unlawful sexual intercourse in violation of G. L. c. 272, § 3 (1984 ed.). The alleged criminal activity occurred in 1983. Over the defendant’s objection, two women, neither of whom was the *828victim of the crimes being tried, were permitted to testify that, while they were the defendant’s patients in 1981, the defendant had come to their homes and sexually assaulted them after injecting them with Valium. The court concluded that the judge had correctly admitted the “other crime” evidence with respect to the drugging charge, that the evidence was “highly probative,” and that “[i]t tended to show the defendant’s state of mind when administering the drug . . . and to make more probable the existence of the requisite illegal intent.” Id. at 227. One other case is worthy of mention. Commonwealth v. Zagranski, ante 278 (1990), was a murder case in which the victim had had dealings with the defendant concerning a sale of land by the victim to the defendant. The court held that evidence that six weeks before the murder the defendant had proposed a scheme to purchase a different parcel of land, located in Jamaica, from a different, Jamaican owner, and then not to pay him but to kill him had been properly admitted at the trial. The court reasoned that the evidence “tended to identify the defendant as the person who killed the victim,” and that the evidence was “relevant on the issue of the defendant’s malice.” Id. at 281.
The other crime evidence offered by the Commonwealth in those cases was held admissible by this court despite the fact that it required those defendants to defend not only against the accusations set forth in the indictments but against the “other crime” accusations as well, and despite “the danger that, because a defendant appears to be a bad man capable of, and likely to commit, such a crime as that charged, a jury might be led to dispense with proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he did actually commit the crime charged.” Commonwealth v. Stone, 321 Mass. 471, 473 (1947). In King, Helfant, and Zagranski, the court held that the trial judges had not erred by measuring the probative value of the other crime evidence as so substantial that it outweighed its potential to be misused by the juries unfairly to the defendants.
In the present case, also, the Commonwealth was in possession of “other crime” evidence. Some of it tended to sup*829port the Commonwealth’s case and some of it tended to weaken it. The Commonwealth was permitted to use the evidence favorable to it. Thus, over the defendant’s objection, the Commonwealth was permitted to introduce evidence of three incidents involving the defendant’s harassment of young women a few days before the victim was killed. The court concludes that there was no error in the admission of evidence that, after playing pool with Lisa Sullivan at a bar, the defendant put his hand on her wrist and asked her to go home with him and, after she refused, the defendant jumped on the hood of her automobile and banged on the windshield with his fists. That evidence, the court says, “is probative evidence of the defendant’s plan, motive, and intent to assault the victim in the instant case.” Ante at 819. Evidence of the other two incidents involving other young women was probative also, the court concludes, because that evidence, when combined with the Lisa Sullivan incident, demonstrates that “the defendant may have been sexually frustrated.” Ante at 819.
I turn now to the other “other crime” evidence that was in the Commonwealth’s possession but which, despite the defendant’s best efforts (a matter discussed below), never was brought to the jury’s attention. The prosecutor knew from the Marlborough police that the police had received information about another woman having been raped on the very same evening and in the very same neighborhood that the victim in the present case was sexually assaulted and killed. The rapist of the other woman was a white man, and therefore was not the defendant in this case, who is black. Surely, if the other crime evidence in King, Helfant, and Zagranski, and the evidence admitted in this case relative to the defendant’s harassment of three women tended to prove that the several offenses in each case were committed by the same man, here, too, the other crime evidence, which the Commonwealth effectively withheld from the defendant by refusing to disclose to the defendant the name and address of the *830victim-potential witness,1 tended to prove that a white man, and therefore not the defendant, committed the crime charged.
Unlike the situation which is presented by a prosecutor offering evidence of a defendant’s other crimes in order to prove that the defendant committed the indicted crime, a situation involving a serious risk of unfair prejudice to the defendant, no such risk is involved when the other crime evidence is offered by the defendant to discount the probability that the indicted offense was committed by him. Thus, we said in Commonwealth v. Jewett, 392 Mass. 558, 563 (1984): “We agree with the Appeals Court that the defendant need not ‘demonstrate the same degree of similarity [between incidents] which the Commonwealth must demonstrate when seeking to introduce such evidence to establish the defendant’s guilt.’ Commonwealth v. Jewett, 17 Mass. App. Ct. 354, 358 n.4 (1984). Perry v. Watts, 520 F. Supp. 550, 560 (N.D. Cal. 1981) [,affd sub nom. Perry v. Rushen, 713 F.2d 1447 (9th Cir. 1983), cert, denied, 469 U.S. 838 (1984)]. When a defendant offers exculpatory evidence regarding misidentification, prejudice ceases to be a factor, and relevance should function as the admissibility standard.”
At the hearing on the defendant’s original motion for access to the other crime victim, the prosecutor and the victim’s attorney argued that, because of the psychological trauma resulting from the attack, the victim did not want to talk to anyone about the incident. The judge denied the motion without stating his reasons. The court states: “We are not convinced that justice requires us to disregard the judge’s ruling on the materiality of the evidence.” Ante at 816. One might fairly ask, “What ruling on the materiality of the evidence?” For all that appears, the judge simply decided to *831protect the victim. If so, the judge’s objective was laudable, but it cannot be given precedence over the defendant’s right to a fair trial. As we have said in other cases, “a defendant may introduce evidence to show that another person committed the crime or had the motive, intent and opportunity to commit it.” Commonwealth v. Graziano, 368 Mass. 325, 329 (1975). See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Keizer, 377 Mass. 264, 267 (1979); Commonwealth v. Murphy, 282 Mass. 593, 597 (1933).
The court points to the defendant’s failure at the motion hearing to demonstrate that the “method of operation” of the two sexual attacks was similar. Ante at 816. I submit that evidence that two sexual attacks occurred at nearly the same time and place, one of which was perpetrated by someone other than the defendant, while far from conclusive, surely bears on the question whether, beyond a reasonable doubt, the second attack was committed by the defendant. In addition, in view of the defendant’s better than threshold showing of relevancy, it cannot be right that the defendant’s inability to provide details of the other crime — details known only to the unknown attacker and the victim — disqualifies him from learning the identity of the victim who perhaps could and would have given him that very information. Such a result is inconsistent with the notion that the objective of criminal litigation is to see not only that “guilt shall not escape” but also that “justice shall be done.” Commonwealth v. Wilson, 381 Mass. 90, 109 (1980), quoting United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 111 (1976). The court should not credit an argument “that the defence must sustain a burden of establishing what might have been when the Commonwealth by its own action has rendered the sustaining of such a burden difficult if not impossible.” Commonwealth v. Balliro, 349 Mass. 505, 517 (1965).
The court also reasons that “[t]he defendant could have had access to the alleged exculpatory and material information by asking for a copy of the police report,” and that, via such report, “the defendant had within his reach the information which, he now argues, was vital to his defense.” Ante *832at 817. Because he failed to ask for the police report, the court “conclude [s] that the trial judge did not err in denying the defendant investigatory access to the victim of the second assault.” Ante at 817. The court’s reasoning begins with and necessarily depends on an assumption, set forth, ante at 817 n.4, as follows: “It is clear from the letter which the Commonwealth sent to the defendant almost one year before the trial began . . . that a Marlborough police officer spoke with the victim about the attack. Therefore, we assume that a police report does exist.” Nothing in the record supports the court’s assumption that there is a police report, nor does the record support the further assumption that, if there were a report, it would have been made available to the defendant. To the contrary, the record and the representation to this court by the Commonwealth’s counsel during oral argument strongly suggest that there was no police report,2 and G. L. c. 41, § 79D (1988 ed.), and G. L. c. 265, § 24C (1988 ed.), *833both of which provide for the confidentiality of reports of rape and sexual assault, make it unlikely that the police would have honored the defendant’s request for a report in any event. The court’s assumptions are unfair to the defendant as is its conclusion based thereon. I would reverse the conviction on the ground that the defendant was entitled to, but was not given, the name and address of the other crime victim.
This appeal presents numerous issues. I have addressed one of them and shall address one more. James Woods testified as a Commonwealth witness that, on the night the victim was killed, Woods was in Bert’s Lounge, which was a bar near the defendant’s home in Marlborough. He testified that he saw a black man enter Bert’s Lounge but that he did not look at the man’s face and that, later on, when a police officer showed him an array of photographs, he was unable to identify any photograph as depicting the man. Woods also testified that he was unable to identify the defendant in court as the man that had come into the bar. A Marlborough police officer then was permitted over the defendant’s objection to testify that, on August 8, 1986, eleven days after the incident, he had shown Woods a photographic array and that Woods had selected the defendant’s photograph as depicting the man Woods had seen in the bar. Relying on Commonwealth v. Swenson, 368 Mass. 268 (1975), the court concludes that the police officer’s testimony was properly admitted to impeach Woods’s testimony. In my view, the court misunderstands Swenson and arrives at a conclusion that is unfair to the defendant. On this issue, too, I would reverse the judgment of conviction.
In Commonwealth v. Swenson, supra, the defendant was convicted of the armed robbery of Captain Bill’s Cafe, Inc. Anthony Bevere was the bartender, and while he was standing at the bar a man armed with a rifle entered and announced that the café was going to be robbed. Bevere then *834became aware of a second man, this one with a handgun, standing beside him. The second man placed the handgun against Bevere’s side and ordered Bevere to transfer money from the cash register to a cigar box. The man with the handgun stood behind Bevere while the money was being transferred and then ordered Bevere to go to the far end of the bar. Then the man with the handgun, followed a minute later by the man with the rifle, left the café.
At a joint trial, Bevere identified one of the defendants in court as the man with the rifle. He did not identify the other defendant, Swenson, as the man with the handgun. In response to a question put by the prosecutor on direct examination as to whether he had identified a photograph of the man with the handgun, Bevere answered, “No.” Id. at 271. In response to a further question of similar import, he said, “I did not give a positive identification of any photograph.” Id. He subsequently testified on redirect examination that he had been shown Swenson’s photograph and that, at that time, he “thought it resembled the man with the rifle.”3 Id.
In Swenson, supra at 272, the Commonwealth was permitted over objection to introduce the testimony of a police officer that, on the night of the robbery, he had shown photographs to Bevere and that Bevere picked out Swenson’s photograph and said, “That looks like the guy that held the handgun.” On appeal, this court held that the officer’s testimony was properly admitted for impeachment purposes. Swenson, supra at 274. “The Commonwealth,” the court said, “was entitled to impeach this witness’s testimony, tending as it did to exculpate Swenson.” Id.
The court’s view that Bevere’s testimony tended to exculpate Swenson was critical to its decision. Bevere had every opportunity to have a good look at the gunman and every reason to remember what he saw. Therefore, his testimony that, on the same evening, he was unable to identify a photo*835graph of Swenson as depicting the gunman strongly suggested that Swenson was not the gunman. Thus, Bevere’s testimony was seriously damaging to the Commonwealth’s case. It “tendfed] ... to exculpate” the defendant, and impeachment was called for.
The present case is significantly different from Swenson. Here, there was no evidence that Woods took a good look at the man who entered Bert’s Lounge or had reason to remember his appearance eleven days later. Indeed, Woods testified that he had not looked at the man’s face. Thus, nothing Woods said in direct examination would have warranted the jury in finding from Woods’s inability to identify the defendant’s photograph that the defendant had not been in Bert’s Lounge on the night of the murder. The fact that Woods could not say that the defendant was there does not permit the inference that he was not. Furthermore, even if Woods’s testimony had warranted a finding that the defendant was not at Bert’s Lounge on the night of the murder, that fact would in no way have impaired the Commonwealth’s case. The defendant was not on trial for being at Bert’s Lounge. He was on trial for a murder said to have occurred elsewhere. Woods’s testimony did not tend to exculpate the defendant. Thus, this case is critically different from Swenson, where the witness’s testimony warranted the inference that the defendant had not committed the crime charged.
Because Woods’s testimony did not harm the Commonwealth’s case, impeachment of Woods — an attack on his credibility — by the party that called him to the witness stand — was uncalled for. What use were the jury logically to make of the officer’s testimony that Woods had selected the defendant’s picture as representing the man at Bert’s Lounge? That testimony led nowhere except to the conclusion that Woods did indeed see the defendant at Bert’s Lounge on the evening of the murder and to the further inference that the defendant, motivated by a consciousness of guilt, lied when he said that on the evening of the crime he had gone home from work and gone to bed feeling sick. The *836testimony, while having no good purpose, risked serious and unfair prejudice to the defendant.
The judge instructed the jury that the officer’s testimony was not admitted to prove that Woods had made a photographic identification of the defendant, but only to show that Woods had made an out-of-court statement that was inconsistent with his in-court statement. One must close his or her eyes to the obvious in order to be content that the instruction adequately protected the defendant from the risk that the jury would use the officer’s testimony against the defendant. It had no other relevance. The instruction, well-motivated as it surely was, was a “ ‘recommendation to the jury of a mental gymnastic which is beyond, not only their power, but anybody’s else.’ Nash v. United States, 54 F.2d 1006, 1007 [(2d Cir.), cert, denied, 285 U.S. 566 (1932)]. ‘The naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury ... all practicing lawyers know to be unmitigated fiction.’ Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 453 (1949) (Jackson, J., concurring).” Commonwealth v. DiMarzo, 364 Mass. 669, 681 (1974) (Hennessey, J., concurring). See Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 128-137 (1968).
In this case, there was substantial evidence which, if believed, would have justified the conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty as charged. However, the defendant should be considered guilty only if and when he is convicted after a fair trial. In my view, despite the conscientious efforts of the trial judge and counsel on both sides, he has not yet had a fair trial.

The prosecutor shared with defense counsel the police information about the other sexual assault. However, although the prosecutor knew the victim’s name and address, she refused, with court approval, to share that information with the defendant. Thus, the defendant was unable to interview the victim or call her as a witness. He was denied the evidence as effectively as if he had never been told about it.

The letter to which reference is made in the court’s footnote 4, ante at 817, identifies copies of numerous police reports being transmitted by the district attorney’s office to defense counsel. Notably absent is a copy of a police report relative to the other crime. Instead, the letter states as follows: “Also, please be informed that it came to the attention of the Marlboro Police that an incident may have occurred, not reported to them by the alleged victim, on Monday night July 28, 1986 between 12 midnight and 1 a.m. behind the Old Brigham’s Garage on Lincoln Street in Marlboro in the nature of a sexual assault. After learning this information, the police contacted a woman who confirmed that she was assaulted and described her assailant as a white male, 5’6” 5’7”, 150-170 lbs., dark hair, collar length, early 30s (older man) deep voice. She refused to speak to the police further” (emphasis added). In addition, at the motion hearing, the prosecutor told the judge that she had told defense counsel about the other crime in the letter referred to above and that “[t] he only thing [s]” she did not release to defense counsel were the woman’s name and address (at the woman’s request), suggesting at least that if there had been a police report concerning the other sexual attack she would have given counsel a copy. The prosecutor also told the judge that “this woman did not report this to the police,” and that she “did not want to come to the station and didn’t come to the station to report what occurred to her on that night.”
Lastly, during oral argument before this court on appeal, the Chief Justice asked, “Obviously there was a police report of some sort ... or was there?” The Commonwealth’s appellate counsel answered, “Well, I’m not sure your Honor that there was. I certainly can’t say definitively that there was not. I can give the court my belief that there was none in the file that *833I reviewed at my own office. And there was information in the file but not a police report.”

In a footnote, the opinion in Swenson makes it clear that the witness’s reference to the man with the rifle was a verbal slip and that he meant the man with the handgun. Commonwealth v. Swenson, supra at 271 n.2.