Commonwealth v. Wadlington (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-024-14)

NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us     SJC‑10863   COMMONWEALTH  vs.  VINCENT WADLINGTON.       Bristol.     October 11, 2013.  ‑  February 14, 2014. Present:  Ireland, C.J., Cordy, Gants, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ.       Homicide.  Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Voluntariness of statement, Admissions and confessions, Disclosure of evidence, Instructions to jury, Argument by prosecutor.  Evidence, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement, Fingerprints, Expert opinion, Scientific test.  Constitutional Law, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement, Waiver of constitutional rights, Search and seizure.  Search and Seizure, Affidavit.  Armed Home Invasion.  Armed Assault with Intent to Rob.       Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on March 3, 2006.   Pretrial motions to suppress evidence were heard by Robert J. Kane, J., and Frances A. McIntyre, J.; the cases were tried before Richard T. Moses, J., and a motion for a new trial, filed on October 4, 2011, was considered by him.     Amy M. Belger for the defendant. Eva M. Zelnick, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.       GANTS, J.  A Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of the murder in the first degree of Rudolph Santos (victim) on the theories of deliberate premeditation, extreme atrocity or cruelty, and felony-murder, in violation of G. L. c. 265, § 1.  The defendant raises eight issues on appeal, claiming that (1) the motion judge erred in not suppressing all of the defendant’s statements made during a prearrest interview at the house of correction where the defendant was being held; (2) the prosecutor failed timely to provide exculpatory evidence regarding a recanted statement made by William Fields, who was a joint venturer and key Commonwealth witness; (3) the fruits of a search of the defendant’s girl friend’s home should have been suppressed where the affidavit in support of the search warrant included information provided by Fields that Fields later recanted; (4) it was reversible error to allow the Commonwealth’s fingerprint expert to testify that a latent fingerprint was made by the defendant, and to bolster her credibility by testifying that she “would never want to put an innocent person in jail”; (5) the trial judge erred in denying the defendant’s motion for a required finding of not guilty as to the armed robbery charge where the Commonwealth failed to present sufficient evidence that property was taken; (6) the defendant’s conviction of armed robbery must be vacated […]

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