These three defendants were tried jointly on several indictments arising out of an incident in which one James Lopes was kidnapped and beaten, his girl friend Maryanne Connolly, now his wife, was raped in his presence, and several items were stolen from their home. The defendant Dougan was convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery, rape, and commission of an unnatural act, the defendant Linehan of kidnapping, armed robbery, and rape, and the defendant Woodard of kidnapping, armed robbery, and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weаpon. On appeal, the convictions of Dougan and Linehan were reversed by the Appeals Court on several grounds
(Commonwealth
v.
Dougan,
We are asked to review three claims of error that relate to all three defendants: First, that the trial judge erred in admitting evidence of several criminal incidents occur
The Commonwealth’s case consisted primarily of the testimony of the victim James Lopes and Maryanne Connolly who testified as follows. On March 29,1974, Connolly was at home with her young son when Woodard and another man named Giers
2
came to visit. Connolly and Lopes had known both men for over a year through association with a motorcycle club
3
to which Woodard and Giers belonged, and in which Lopes had been a probationary member. When Lopes arrived home from work about an hour later, the three men had a couple of beers and talked, until suddenly Woodard stood up, pulled a gun on Lopes, and announced that "he’d come to kidnap” him. Holding guns to Lopes’s back, Woodard and Giers forced him outside into a waiting car and drove him across town to a house belonging to Linehan. There Lopes was made to lie facе down on a bed and Dougan, whom Lopes also knew as a member of the motorcycle club, accused him of making certain telephone calls to his girl friend, and slapped him several times. Dougan, Linehan and Giers then drove Lopes back to his apartment (Woodard re
1. Evidence of other crimes. The defendants presented no evidence, their primary defense being that the incident had never occurred. In support of this theory, they relied heavily on the fact that Lopes and Connolly had made no report about the incident to the police until after Lopes was arrested on June 29, 1974, by Federal agents for handgun dealing. To explain this delay, the Commonwealth sought to introduce testimony from Lopes and Connolly about threats and violence that occurred against them after the March 29 incident which later acts deterred them from gоing to the police. The defendants moved before trial to have such evidence excluded, and the judge agreed to hold a voir dire on it when it arose during the trial. When the prosecutor attempted to refer to such incidents in his opening statement, the judge sustained the defendants’ objections to his remarks.
On direct examination Lopes testified without objection that the reason he had waited so long to tell the police about the incident was that "I was in hiding from these people.” He also testified, again without objection, that he had moved to a new apartment three weeks after the incident, and that he had to move from that apartment about a month and one-half later because somebody
During cross-examination Lopes was indeed questioned about his delay in reporting to the police. Therefore on redirect the judge permitted him to testify about three incidents which he stated had caused him to change his mind about reporting to the authorities: one, the robbery of his apartment which he had testified to on direct; two, an occasion when an unidentified car whizzed by him as he was crossing the street; and three, an occasion when a yellow Mustang automobile ran his motorcycle off the road. The defendants took exception to all of this testimony.
Connolly testified that she did not go to the police at first "because they had threatened me” and that she changed her mind because "I just got tired оf running.” The defendants made no objection to this line of testimony until the prosecutor asked the witness about specific incidents that affected her state of mind with regard to speaking to the police. In response to a defense objection at that point, and on the prosecutor’s representation that this testimony would be corroborative of what Lopes had testified to previously, the judge excluded the answer to the question on the ground that the evidence had already been admitted.
2.
The scope of cross-examination.
In their cross-examination of Lopes, the defendants sought to bring out the relationship between his testimony and his arrest by Federal authorities on gun dealing charges. The Commonwealth objected to this line of questioning when it first arose, but the judge overruled the objection, allowing the defendants to "bring out the whole situation.” Lopes was
The defendants are entitled, as of right, to reasonable cross-examination of a witness for the purpose of showing bias, particularly where that witness may have a motivation to seek favor with the government.
Alford
v.
United States,
The defendants did not object at the time to the comments about the victim having been "hounded ... from pillar to post,” and the sрecific incidents referred to — the ransacking of the apartment, the threats, the running off the road — had been admitted, and we hold properly admitted in evidence. The comment about Lopes’s telephone call — which the defendants did object to, and which was not based on any evidence — was immediately followed by the judge’s curative instruction to the jury that "[t]he arguments of counsel are not facts in the case, not evidence” and his admonition to disregard any comments not consistent with the jury’s memory of the evi
The task of this court is to assess on exceptions by the defendants whether the argument as a whole is prejudicial in light of all the circumstances, including the nature of the evidence, the persistence or flagrancy of the remarks, and the instructions of the judge.
Commonwealth
v.
Earltop,
4.
Issues concerning the identification of Linehan.
Alone among the three defendants, Linehan contended that his arrest and conviction were the result of mistaken identity, and that he was not present when the alleged crimes were committed. Although in his presentation to
The validity of the identification was thrown into question by several factors, none of which, unfortunately, was ever properly explored on the record. First, there was a question as to how Linehan was initially identified to the police. The Commonwealth had assured Mr. Clifford that the victims knew Linehan, and had named him to the police as the fourth man involved, but just before trial a police officer told the defense counsel that in fact a photographic identification had ocсurred. At a lobby conference before trial, the prosecutor informed the judge that he had just learned that Lopes had selected Linehan’s picture from a photographic spread; until then he "had always been informed that they all [the victims and Linehan] knew each other.”
7
Based on this last minute information, Mr. Clifford moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the Commonwealth had wilfully withheld exculpatory evidence, and that he would have prepared the case differently if he had known that there had been photographic identification. This motion was denied, as was his motion to show a photographic spread to the victims, have a lineup, or seat Linehan among the spectators to test the victims’ identification of him. The Commonwealth stated that it would not use the photographic
The prosecutor’s representation that the victims had identified Linehan on the basis of their previous knowledge of each other was further thrown into doubt by the victims’ testimony on cross-examination. Lopes testified that he only knew Linehan by the nickname "Lennie,” and that he had only seen "Lennie” on two very brief occasions prior to the March 29 incident, when he passed by him in a hallway. Connolly testified that she had only seen Linehan "[m]aybe once” before March 29, and only knew him by the nickname "Lennie.” There was some implication that Linehan may not even have been a member of the motorcycle club; in any event Lopes testified that as far as he knew Linehan was not, nor had Lopes ever seen Linehan in the company of Dougan, Woodard, Giers or any other club member.
It was Mr. Clifford’s contention that the fourth man involved was in fact not Linehan, but another unidentified look-alike member of the motorcycle club, whose photograph Mr. Clifford had somewhat mysteriously obtained and which he wished to show to the victims. The Commonwealth was agreeable to having this photograph shown to Lopes on voir dire but the judge excluded it, even when offered out of thе presence of the jury, unless it was developed by further evidence who the man depicted in the photograph was, and whether he was a member of the motorcycle club.
Mr. Clifford never produced any such evidence at trial, but at a new trial hearing a year and one-half later he brought the mysterious man in the photograph forward as a witness for Linehan. The man was one Robert Hayes, by his own admission a member of the Devil’s Disciples at the time of the kidnapping, a very close friend of Linehan’s, and also by his own admission the fourth man who
At the hearing on the motion for a new trial, Hayes testified about his prior contaсts with Mr. Clifford and about why he had finally come forward. He described his part in the March 29 events in some detail. After hearing this testimony, the judge denied the new trial motion, finding that Hayes’s version of the events was inconsistent with the testimony of Lopes and Connolly, 8 that the murder charge against him gave him a motive for exonerating his good friend Linehan, and that he and Linehan were not "look-alikes” even though both had had beards at the time of the crime. The judge also made a finding that there had been no prior out-of-court photographic identification of Linehan, althоugh the only reference to this issue at the new trial hearing was in Mr. Clifford’s argument, when he hypothesized that the police showed Lopes a photograph of Linehan, whom they knew to be the owner of the house to which Lopes was taken, and Lopes said, "[Tjhat’s the man.” The Commonwealth never confirmed or denied whether such a photographic identification had occurred.
The finding that there had been no prior out-of-court photographic identification was plainly in error, since no evidence had ever been introduced at either the trial or
It is undeniable that a defendant has a due process right to identification procedures meeting a certain basic standard of fairness.
Stovall
v.
Denno,
We have recently emphasized and here repeat that full exploration of the circumstances surrounding eyewitness identification is necessary tо ensure a fair trial.
Common
In these circumstances, we reverse the judgment against Linehan and set aside the verdicts of guilty as to him. In the event of a retrial, there should be a voir dire hearing at which all the circumstanсes surrounding the pretrial identification of Linehan can be developed.
United States
v.
Wade, supra
at 242.
Commonwealth
v.
Mendes,
5. Linehan’s final assignment of error, based on the judge’s rulings on the sequestration of witnesses, furnishes no additional ground for reversal, because the judge’s rulings fell within the range of his discretion.
Commonwealth
v.
Watkins,
6. As to the defendants Dougan and Woodard, the judgments of the Superior Court are affirmed. As to the defendant Linehan, the judgments of the Superior Court are rеversed and the verdicts set aside.
So ordered.
Notes
Giers, who was indicted with the other defendants, did not appear for trial and was defaulted.
This club was known as the "Devil’s Disciples,” but no mention of the name was permitted during trial on account of its prejudicial effect.
The defendants contend that the prejudice suffered by them as a result of admission of the evidence of "other crimes” was compounded by the prosecutor’s remarks in closing argument. We consider this claim further in part 3 of this opinion.
Cf.
Commonwealth
v.
Ahern,
"Well, I can suggest to you — and I think you could reasonably find — that he [Lopes] came to a point in his life where he had to make a decision. He no longer could run with this motorcycle gang. They had hounded him from pillar to post, according to the testimony here from the stand. There was evidence that his apartment had been ransacked. There was evidence that if he went to the police, that he and his wife would be killed. There was evidence that he’d been run off the road on at least one occasion. It’s for you to say whether or not this man had come to the end of the line when he finally told the story.
"You’re not dealing with your average citizen when you’re dealing with a motorcycle gang [objections by all defendants]. You can use your own good common sense as to whether or not the Marquis of Queensbury would be found amongst members of a motorcycle gang. You can decide whether or not, in your experience, a story like this of rape and unnatural acts with an infant present — is that consistent with the type of behavior that you’d expect from the type of people that participate in motorcycle gangs? That’s for you to say.
"Do you think it would be consistent with your assessment of Lopes that he might call, even though he denied to you — that he might call a young girl who was getting involved with a motorcycle gang and perhaps tell her that she was going in the wrong direction [objections by all defendants]?”
On cross-examination, Lopes confirmed in answer to a question by Mr. Clifford, that he had been shown photographs by a detective.
Examples of such inconsistencies included Hayes’s testimony that Lopes had never been tied up, that he saw no one engage in any sexual acts with Connolly, and that there was a "big dog” present in Lopes’s apartment.
