Commonwealth v. Bins, 465 Mass. 348

Defendant beat Carla Souza and Caique Souza to death with a hammer on May 20, 2006, after family tensions over religion and finances.
He surrendered at the Framingham police station and gave a long statement in Portuguese, translated for officers, which was admitted at trial over defense objection.
Two first-degree murder indictments based on deliberate premeditation resulted in guilty verdicts and consecutive life sentences.
Prior to trial, the court ruled on suppression motions: the Miranda warnings and waiver were admitted; Souza’s statements were admitted for state-of-mind purposes; and DNA evidence was contested as improper but not outcome-determinative.
The defense challenged the sufficiency of warnings, voluntariness of the waiver and statement, hearsay issues about Souza’s statements, prosecutor’s closing, and failure to give voluntary manslaughter instruction.
On review under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the convictions, noting some evidentiary error but no miscarriage of justice.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Miranda warnings sufficiency	Defendant contends warnings inadequate to Waiver	Defendant argues warnings failed to inform appointment of counsel and waiver was not voluntary	Warnings adequate; waiver voluntary beyond reasonable doubt
Voluntariness of waiver and statement	Waiver and statement were voluntary under totality of circumstances	Persistence after invoking rights undermines voluntariness	Waiver and statement voluntary; rights were effectively honored
Souza state-of-mind statements and hearsay	Souza statements admissible to show state of mind and motive; properly limited	Statements are hearsay and should be excluded, or evidence misused	Admissible for state of mind with proper limiting instructions; not error requiring reversal
Prosecutor's closing argument on premeditation and Souza statements	Closing accurately described law and used state-of-mind evidence for motive	Closing misstated premeditation and misused Souza statements	No substantial likelihood of miscarriage; no reversible error; instructions cured deficiency
Voluntary manslaughter instruction	Evidence did not support manslaughter; no duty to instruction	Pretrial evidence could support manslaughter given provocation and passion	No error; no reasonable view of the evidence support manslaughter instruction

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (U.S. 1966) (custodial warnings and voluntary waiver required)
Commonwealth v. Adams, 389 Mass. 265 (Mass. 1983) (waiver of Miranda rights must be voluntary, knowing, intelligent)
Commonwealth v. Silanskas, 433 Mass. 678 (Mass. 2001) (standards for evaluating Miranda waivers)
Commonwealth v. Larkin, 429 Mass. 426 (Mass. 1999) (Miranda waiver analysis in Massachusetts context)
Commonwealth v. Cormier, 427 Mass. 446 (Mass. 1998) (state-of-mind evidence and limiting instructions)
Commonwealth v. Qualls, 425 Mass. 163 (Mass. 1997) (state-of-mind basis for proof of motive; proper use of statements)
Commonwealth v. Vuthy Seng, 436 Mass. 537 (Mass. 2010) (defective warnings and effect on voluntariness when translations differ)
Commonwealth v. Emeny, 463 Mass. 138 (Mass. 2012) (Harmless error standard for evidentiary rulings; DNA testimony considerations)