Opinion
21-P-1006
12-20-2022
COMMONWEALTH v. Jatayvyn CRAYTON.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0
After a jury-waived trial, the defendant was found guilty of assault and battery on a correctional facility employee (count one), and assault and battery (count two). On appeal, he claims the motion judge erred by denying his motion to suppress, and that the Department of Youth Services (DYS) facility in which he was being held is not a correctional facility, which rendered insufficient the evidence supporting count one. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
1. Motion to suppress. The defendant claims that the statements he made to a uniformed State trooper at the DYS facility should have been suppressed because those statements were the product of a custodial interrogation, and they were not preceded by the Miranda warnings. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 479 (1966). We disagree.
Whether the police have conducted custodial interrogation of a suspect is a question of Federal constitutional law. See Commonwealth v. Sneed, 440 Mass. 216, 220 n.7 (2003) ; Commonwealth v. Morse, 427 Mass. 117, 123 (1998). See also J.A. Grasso, Jr., & C.M. McEvoy, Suppression Matters Under Massachusetts Law § 18–2[e], at 18–19 (2021 ed.). It is the defendant's burden to establish the necessary facts to prove custody. See Commonwealth v. Larkin, 429 Mass. 426, 432 (1999). The test is an objective one. See id. See also Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 319 (1994) ("an officer's subjective and undisclosed view concerning whether the person being interrogated is a suspect is irrelevant to the assessment whether the person is in custody").
Only after a defendant has carried that burden must the Commonwealth demonstrate that he knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination. See Miranda, 384 U.S. at 475 ; Commonwealth v. Alcala, 54 Mass. App. Ct. 49, 53 (2002).
"The crucial question is whether, considering all the circumstances, a reasonable person in the defendant's position would have believed that he was in custody" (citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. 201, 211 (2001). In determining whether a defendant was in custody, "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 (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." Id. at 211–212. Where an individual is already in custody, as was the case here, the question becomes, "whether he is subject to some restraint in addition to those normally imposed on him by virtue of his status as an inmate." Larkin, 429 Mass. at 434. See Commonwealth v. Smith, 456 Mass. 476, 479 (2010). "An additional restraint is one that places a restriction on the inmate's freedom of action in connection with the interrogation and prevents him from leaving the scene of questioning by placing a further limit on his already restricted freedom of movement." Larkin, supra at 435.
Here, the defendant was confined to a DYS facility, and he was not free to leave. However, his inability to leave was not conditioned on the trooper's questions or presence, but because of restraints already in place apart from the trooper's inquiry. Although the defendant was a suspect in the assault, the trooper's open-ended question of "what happened," in a conversational tone, from ten feet away, did not convey any opinion or belief to the defendant that he was a suspect. After the defendant admitted hitting the victim, he became "quiet." When the trooper asked why he hit the victim, the defendant looked down and shrugged his shoulders. At the end of the one-minute conversation, the trooper told the defendant that he would receive a summons for the assault. The defendant was not arrested.
Although the trooper was armed, he neither drew his sidearm nor placed his hand on the weapon.
Given these circumstances, the trooper's conduct and questions did not impose some restraint in addition to what had been imposed by virtue of the defendant's status at the DYS facility. See Smith, 456 Mass. at 479 ; Larkin, 429 Mass. at 434. Accordingly, the defendant was not in custody for purposes of Miranda, the warnings were not required, and the motion to suppress was properly denied.
2. Correctional facility. The defendant also claims that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction of assault and battery on a correctional facility employee because the DYS facility is not a correctional facility for purpose of G. L. c. 127, § 38B (b ). The Commonwealth has conceded the point, and we accept the concession.
Section 1 (d ) of G. L. c. 125 defines "correctional facility" as "any building, enclosure, space or structure used for the custody, control and rehabilitation of committed offenders and of such other persons as may be placed in custody therein in accordance with law." "State correctional facility" is further defined as "any correctional facility owned, operated, administered or subject to the control of the department of correction." G. L. c. 125, § 1 (n ).
In contrast, DYS is under the supervision and control of the Commissioner of Youth Services, who is appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. G. L. c. 18A, § 1. DYS is not an arm or component of the Department of Correction. See Newton v. Commissioner of the Dep't of Youth Servs., 62 Mass. App. Ct. 343, 349 (2004). Thus, the DYS employee-victim here was not a correctional facility employee under G. L. c. 127, § 38B (b ). The defendant's motion for a required finding of not guilty of this count should have been allowed, and we therefore vacate that conviction. The defendant's remaining conviction on count two of assault and battery is affirmed.
So ordered.
vacated in part; affirmed in part