Commonwealth v. Spring ( 2019 )

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18-P-331 Appeals Court
COMMONWEALTH vs. JASON SPRING.
No. 18-P-331.
Worcester. March 8, 2019. - December 5, 2019.
Present: Hanlon, Agnes, & Sullivan, JJ.
Firearms. Evidence, Firearm, Result of illegal search, Result
of illegal interrogation. Search and Seizure, Fruits of
illegal search, Plain view. Practice, Criminal, Motion to
suppress.
Complaints received and sworn to in the East Brookfield
Division of the District Court Department on January 4 and
February 23, 2016.
A motion to suppress was heard by Maura K. McCarthy, J.;
and the case was tried before Mark A. Goldstein, J.
Darla J. Mondou for the defendant.
Susan M. Oftring, Assistant District Attorney, for the
Commonwealth.
HANLON, J. After a jury trial in the District Court, the
defendant, Jason Spring, was convicted of carrying a firearm
without a license and possession of ammunition without a firearm
identification card (FID). He appeals, arguing that his motion
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to suppress should have been allowed and, for that reason, he is
entitled to a new trial. We agree that the motion should have
been allowed, and his admission that he did not have a license
to carry the firearm or an FID card suppressed, but we conclude
that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We
therefore affirm.
Background. We supplement the judge's findings on the
motion to suppress with uncontested facts from the testimony at
the hearing. On January 1, 2016, Rutland Police Sergeant
Nicholas A. Monaco noticed a black Jeep parked in a private dirt
parking lot at approximately 2:10 A.M. Monaco observed a T-
shirt hanging in the driver's side window, and that the car's
windows were fogged. The defendant was asleep in the car; when
awakened, he identified himself as "Jason Spring from Holden,"
but when the officer asked for his driver's license, the
defendant responded that he did not have his wallet. Monaco
asked who was the owner of the car, and the defendant responded
that "the car might have belonged to a guy he worked with."
Monaco told the defendant to get out of the car, handcuffed him,
and placed him in the rear of Monaco's police cruiser. Monaco
then conducted a Registry of Motor Vehicles inquiry and
discovered that the defendant's driver's license had been
revoked and the car was unregistered. Monaco also learned the
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defendant had an outstanding default warrant from the District
Court.
As a result of this information, Monaco decided that the
defendant's car would be towed. Another officer arrived, and
the officers conducted an inventory search of the car pursuant
to police department policy. The inventory search produced a
large capacity rifle (a Bushmaster semiautomatic), three
magazines, ammunition, a single Prednisone pill, and a glass
pipe with marijuana residue.
Monaco testified that the case containing the rifle, the
magazines, and the ammunition was not in plain view but covered
by clothes. When he found it, he returned to his cruiser and
searched the relevant computer database for any record that the
defendant possessed a license to carry a firearm or an FID; he
discovered that the defendant had neither.
Afterwards, Monaco asked the defendant if he had either a
license to carry the firearm or an FID. The defendant responded
that he did not. Monaco acknowledged that, when he asked the
question, he had not advised the defendant of his Miranda
warnings. Monaco then transported the defendant to the Rutland
Police Department where he was booked and read his Miranda
rights for the first time.
As noted, prior to trial, the defendant moved to suppress
"the stop, search, seizure and questioning as a result of an
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unauthorized and illegal stop and search of a vehicle." After
the hearing, the judge issued written findings of fact and
rulings of law and denied the defendant's motion. Thereafter,
the defendant was tried before six-person jury, with a different
judge presiding, and he was convicted of carrying a firearm
without a license and possession of ammunition without an FID
card. The defendant appeals, seeking a new trial and claiming
that the motion judge erred in denying his motion to suppress
his "statements made in response to interrogation while
handcuffed and secured in a locked cruiser without being
provided Miranda warnings."
Discussion. "In reviewing a ruling on a motion to
suppress, we accept the judge's subsidiary findings of fact
absent clear error 'but conduct an independent review of [her]
ultimate findings and conclusions of law.'" Commonwealth v.
Cawthron, 479 Mass. 612, 616 (2018), quoting Commonwealth v.
Scott, 440 Mass. 642, 646 (2004). The defendant's motion to
suppress argued only that he was subject to an illegal stop and
search and that, as a result, the evidence seized "as well as
any statements made by him prior to Miranda" should be
suppressed. At the end of the hearing, the defendant argued
again that the arrest and search were improper, although he did
note that no Miranda warnings were given until he was at the
police station. Likely for that reason, the motion judge made
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findings of fact and rulings of law about the search and the
arrest but did not make any specific findings or rulings
regarding the defendant's statements.
The issue for us, then, is whether, on these facts, the
defendant was subjected to custodial interrogation improperly,
without being provided with Miranda warnings. "To determine
whether a defendant was subjected to custodial interrogation,
'the court considers several factors: (1) the place of the
interrogation; (2) whether the officers have conveyed to the
person being questioned any belief or opinion that that person
is a suspect; (3) the nature of the interrogation, including
whether the interview was aggressive or, instead, informal and
influenced in its contours by the person being interviewed; and
[previously] (4) whether, at the time the incriminating
statement was made, the person was free to end the interview by
leaving the locus of the interrogation or by asking the
interrogator to leave, as evidenced by whether the interview
terminated with an arrest.'" Cawthron, 479 Mass. at 617-618,
quoting Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. 201, 211-212 (2001).
This fourth factor was recently revised by the Supreme
Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Matta, 483 Mass. 357, 363
(2019), where the court concluded,
"In short, because, in most situations, a reasonable person
would not believe that he or she was free to leave during a
police encounter, using that standard does not produce the
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information necessary to determine whether a seizure has
occurred. Rather, the inquiry must be whether, in the
circumstances, a reasonable person would believe that an
officer would compel him or her to stay.
"Although this is a different question from what we
heretofore have asked, the analysis takes the same
circumstances into consideration. Whether an encounter
between a law enforcement official and a member of the
public constitutes a noncoercive inquiry or a
constitutional seizure depends upon the facts of the
particular case."
As a result, it is still the case that, "[r]arely is any single
factor conclusive." Cawthron, 479 Mass. at 618, quoting
Commonwealth v. Bryant, 390 Mass. 729, 737 (1984).
As to location, "we consider the circumstances from the
point of view of the defendant" (quotation and citation
omitted). Cawthron, 479 Mass. at 618. Here, the defendant was
questioned while he was handcuffed in the back of a police
cruiser, shortly after 2 A.M., on private property. The
circumstances of the inquiry clearly favor the defendant's
argument here.
Next, in Cawthron, the court stated that, "[i]f the
detectives had conveyed to the defendants that they were
suspects, that might support a determination that the defendants
were in custody before they made the incriminating statements."
Cawthron, 479 Mass. at 619. Here, the defendant was detained
because he could not produce identification or prove ownership
of the car. While he was handcuffed and seated in the back of
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Monaco's cruiser, Monaco questioned him about whether he had the
necessary documentation for the gun and ammunition seized from
the back of the car. In fact, the question was independent from
the reason the defendant had been detained initially. Compare
id.; Commonwealth v. Shine, 398 Mass. 641, 648-649 (1986)
(notwithstanding interrogating officer's uncommunicated intent
to arrest defendant, where officer asked only "natural
preliminary questions designed to determine the defendant's
identity and what he knew about the crime," court concluded
defendant was not subject to custodial interrogation).
However, Monaco's question was not a "vague and unformed
suspicion of some illicit activity." Cawthron, 479 Mass. at
619. While possessing a firearm or ammunition is not
necessarily illegal, here, Monaco had already learned that the
defendant lacked proper documents for both the gun and the
ammunition, making the line of questioning clearly relevant to
specific illicit activity. Id. In addition, the defendant,
already handcuffed and in the back of Monaco's cruiser, was
aware that he did not possess proper documents. We therefore
conclude that a person in the defendant's position would
reasonably conclude that Monaco's questions conveyed his
suspicion that the defendant had committed a crime.
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On the issue of the tone of the exchange, the motion judge
found only that the defendant was "cooperative." The record is
otherwise silent on this third prong.
Finally, the critical question is "whether, in the
circumstances, a reasonable person would believe that an officer
would compel him or her to stay." Matta, 483 Mass. at 363. In
Commonwealth v. Gordon, 47 Mass. App. Ct. 825, 827 (1999), this
court held that, while the experience of being handcuffed and
placed in a police cruiser did not necessarily convert a Terry
stop1 based on reasonable suspicion into an arrest, there, "the
combined indicia of handcuffs and restraint in the back of a
police cruiser attain[ed] the level of custody associated with
formal arrest. . . . Miranda warnings therefore should have
preceded any interrogation."
So too here, the defendant was asked whether he had an FID
card or license to carry while handcuffed in the rear of a
police cruiser. Afterwards, he was in fact arrested. In that
circumstance, the defendant reasonably would have believed that
the officer would compel him to stay, if he chose to leave. See
Commonwealth v. Damelio, 83 Mass. App. Ct. 32, 35 (2012)
("whether the defendant [is] free to leave is based on a
reasonable person standard, and not on the subjective state of
1 See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).
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mind of the officers"). As a result, we conclude that, before
posing the question, Monaco should have informed the defendant
of his Miranda rights; because he did not, the statement should
have been suppressed.
The issue then becomes whether the erroneous admission of
the defendant's statement that he did not have an FID card or a
license to carry was "harmless beyond a reasonable doubt."
Commonwealth v. Tyree, 455 Mass. 676, 700 (2010), quoting
Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967). After careful
review, we are satisfied that "[a]lthough the statement[] . . .
should have been suppressed, [its] admission in evidence was
harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Chapman[, supra]. To
determine whether erroneously admitted evidence was harmless, we
consider factors such as 'the importance of the evidence in the
prosecution's case; the relationship between the evidence and
the premise of the defense; who introduced the issue at trial;
the frequency of the reference; whether the erroneously admitted
evidence was merely cumulative of properly admitted evidence;
the availability or effect of curative instructions; and the
weight or quantum of evidence of guilt.'" Commonwealth v.
Neves, 474 Mass. 355, 365-366 (2016), quoting Tyree, supra at
701.
Here, at the time that the defendant admitted to Monaco
that he did not have a license to carry or an FID card, the
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officer already had discovered the gun and the ammunition that
formed the basis for the convictions. After careful review, we
conclude that this independent discovery, prior to the
defendant's confession, renders the inadmissible admission
evidence harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Commonwealth
v. Greenwood, 78 Mass. App. Ct. 611, 623 (2011), quoting
Commonwealth v. Dagraca, 447 Mass. 546, 555 (2006) (court's task
is to determine whether properly admitted evidence was
sufficiently "powerful as to neutralize the erroneously
admitted" evidence). Monaco testified at trial, without
objection, that before questioning the defendant on the issue,
Monaco had learned, by searching the firearms database for the
defendant's name, that the defendant did not possess the
requisite license or FID card. Most importantly, it was the
defendant's burden at trial to produce evidence that he had the
proper license and FID card, and he failed to do so. See
Commonwealth v. Weaver, 474 Mass. 787, 815 (2016) ("lack of
license is not an element of unlicensed possession, but rather
an affirmative defense"). In fact, the defendant testified at
trial that he had neither a license to carry nor an FID card.2
2 The defendant does not argue that he would not have
testified at trial but for the erroneous denial of his motion to
suppress.
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Given the defendant's inability to produce the proper
license and FID card, his testimony at trial that he did not
have them, and Monaco's independent source for the information,
we are satisfied that the defendant's admission to Monaco was
cumulative of the properly admitted evidence and thus harmless
beyond a reasonable doubt. See Greenwood, 78 Mass. App. Ct. at
623.
Judgments affirmed.