Commonwealth v. Casali
459 Mass. 139 (2011)
Supreme Judicial Court
March 17, 2011
Criminal, Homicide, Evidence, Impeachment, Redirect Examination, Instructions to Jury
The defendant was convicted of first degree murder for the stabbing death of her grandaunt, seventy-three year old Winifred Moniz. On appeal the defendant argued that (1) she was denied the right to rehabilitate a witness whom had been impeached; (2) the judge erred in allowing a witness to testify that allegations that the victim’s husband molested his stepdaughter three decades prior to the murder was “unfounded”; and (3) the judge failed to use the model jury instructions when instructing the jury on intoxication. The judgment was affirmed and relief pursuant to G.L.c. 278 § 33E was denied.
Facts
The defendant, who lived on a property which abutted the victim’s home, left her home at 8:10 am claiming that she was going to work but instead drove her vehicle along a pathway into a cranberry bog and waited almost one hour for the victim’s husband to begin his outdoor chore of mowing the field adjacent to his home. The defendant then changed into a black hooded sweatshirt and a bandana mask before entering the victim’s home for the purpose of stealing cash. The defendant then stabbed the victim more than one dozen times with a buck knife and took her wallet. While Defendant was in the home, a neighbor called the police to report a suspicious vehicle parked near the cranberry bog and called again minutes later to report a person running through the wooded area near the victim’s home and speed away in the vehicle reported earlier. Police later recovered the victim’s wallet empty of cash, a CVS bag containing clothes, including a hooded sweatshirt and bandana, and a buck knife in a nearby tree. The defendant denied any involvement in the killing and gave the police a timeline of her whereabouts for the morning in question.
The defendant claimed that she did dispose of the bloody evidence found but did so at the instruction of the victim’s husband, Wayne, because he threatened to harm the defendant’s twenty-one year old daughter. The defendant claims that as a motive, Wayne committed the murder because he and the victim got into an argument about his molesting the victim’s daughter years earlier. A week prior to the killing, Wayne received a handwritten letter which stated that Wayne’s nephew (Douglas White) said Wayne molested his stepdaughter, Pamela. Both Pamela and Douglas testified at the trial to molestation which occurred thirty years earlier.
Pamela’s Testimony
Pamela testified that she was molested by her mother’s husband, Wayne, and that her mother knew of the abuse but did nothing about it claiming that her mother said that no one would believe her or Pamela. The prosecution sought to impeach Pamela but asking her about a website, Home Sweet Home, where Pamela stated that her mother was a “wonderful woman and mother.” At sidebar, the defendant asked to be given an opportunity to elicit information from Pamela that her mother did not do anything about the abuse because she too was being physically abused by Wayne. The judge allowed for the impeachment of the witness but denied the defendant’s request to rehabilitate Pamela’s testimony by eliciting such information about the victim’s reason for failing to act on her daughter’s report of sexual abuse.
The Court held that the defendant did not meet her burden of proving abuse of discretion because evidence that Wayne abused the victim would not have rehabilitated Pamela’s testimony that the victim didn’t report the abuse because no one would believe them. Instead it sought to admit evidence of Wayne’s abuse against the victim which was evidence that the trial judge had already ruled was too remote in time.
Douglas White’s Testimony
Douglas White testified at trial that the sexual abuse allegation against Wayne was unfounded. The defendant argues that this testimony was an inadmissible opinion by a lay witness. The Court held that substance of the testimony was admissible because it was meant to clarify for the jury that although the letter stating that Wayne molested Pamela was on the witness’s stationery, White stated that he never made such an allegation because he had no basis to make it.
Jury Instructions on Intoxication
Although the defendant did not request an intoxication jury instruction nor present an intoxication defense, the judge made his intention clear that because there was evidence that the defendant was intoxicated on the day of the murder, he would give an intoxication jury instruction. The defendant claims that it was error for the judge not to use the model jury instruction for intoxication and relied upon Commonwealth v. Smith, 449 Mass. 12, 17 (2007) which recommended that a judge use the model instruction on intoxication. The Court held that because this was a recommendation and not a mandate, the judge’s instruction was adequate and there was no error.
G.L. c 278 § 33E
The Commonwealth admitted drug certificates at trial which stated that marijuana and heroin were found in the defendant’s home. Pursuant to Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 129 S. Ct. 2257 (2009), such evidence is considered testimonial which triggers the protections of the sixth amendment of the United States Constitution. Without the actual analyst who performed the chemical test on the substance, the evidence is inadmissible. However, the Court held that this was not error beyond a reasonable doubt because the defendant herself testified to the drugs being found in her home on the day of the murder and also admitted that she suffered symptoms of heroin withdrawal on the day after the murder. For this reason, the Court declined to exercise its authority under G.L. c 278 § 33E in order to reduce the degree of guilt and order a new trial.
Judgments Affirmed.
