Commonwealth v. Accime
68 N.E.3d 1153
Mass.2017Background
- On June 5, 2011 Richie Accime was brought involuntarily by ambulance to a hospital emergency psychiatric room and told he would likely be held; he disputed any compliance with statutory involuntary-commitment procedures.
- After refusing medication and demanding to leave, Accime shouted threats, adopted a fighting stance, removed his shirt, paced with clenched fists, and made verbal threats to harm officers if restrained or pepper-sprayed.
- Hospital staff summoned security; multiple officers (some armed with batons, handcuffs, and pepper spray) entered the room, warned Accime he would be restrained or pepper-sprayed if he refused, and then sprayed him with pepper spray; he was handcuffed after sitting on a stretcher.
- Accime was charged with threatening, disorderly conduct (G. L. c. 272, § 53), and assault; acquitted of assault, jury deadlocked on threatening, convicted of disorderly conduct; judge fined him and denied motions for required findings and certain self-defense jury instructions.
- On appeal the issue was sufficiency of the evidence for the § 53 conviction, focusing on whether Accime acted with conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk of public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm, and whether the conduct was sufficiently "public."
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sufficiency of evidence for § 53 recklessness element | Commonwealth: Accime's loud, threatening, fighting behavior in ED caused officers to reroute traffic and alarmed others, showing reckless disregard for public inconvenience/annoyance | Accime: No evidence he was aware his conduct affected persons outside his room; detainee in psychiatric ED context; no conscious disregard of public risk | Reversed: evidence insufficient to show conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable public risk |
| "Public" character of conduct under § 53 | Commonwealth: conduct affected persons in hospital and required rerouting, thus public | Accime: Conduct stayed within his room; other patients may have observed but not the type of public disturbance § 53 targets | Reversed: conduct not sufficiently "public" given setting and limited impact |
| Relevance of involuntary hospitalization/forced medication procedures | Commonwealth: trial court treated statutory procedures as irrelevant to disorderly conduct charge | Accime: Lack of evidence compliance with G. L. c.123 §§12,21 may bear on voluntariness, intent, and need for self-defense instruction | Court: Procedures are relevant generally; failure to show compliance may inform intent and self-defense issues, though not decided here on merits |
| Appropriateness of criminalizing disruptive behavior in psychiatric ED | Commonwealth: security response and multiple officers indicate seriousness | Accime: Psychiatric ED is designed to absorb such disruptions; criminalizing such conduct risks punishing mental illness in treatment settings | Court: Such prosecutions should be rare; context-sensitive rule favors dismissal here |
Key Cases Cited
- Commonwealth v. Chou, 433 Mass. 229 (engrafting Model Penal Code definition onto § 53)
- Commonwealth v. Sholley, 432 Mass. 721 (setting-specific inquiry; lower tolerance for disruption in courthouse)
- Commonwealth v. A Juvenile, 368 Mass. 580 (disorderly conduct targets acts that disturb public tranquility)
- Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671 (standard for reviewing sufficiency of evidence)
- Commonwealth v. Feigenbaum, 404 Mass. 471 (Model Penal Code mens rea requirement quoted)