Commonwealth v. Bins (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-099-13)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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‑10864 COMMONWEALTH vs. JEREMAIS BINS.[1] Middlesex. October 5, 2012. ‑ June 5, 2013. Present: Ireland, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ. Homicide. Constitutional Law, Admissions and confessions, Waiver of constitutional rights, Assistance of counsel, Voluntariness of statement, Confrontation of witnesses. Due Process of Law, Assistance of counsel. Evidence, Voluntariness of statement, Hearsay, State of mind, Expert opinion. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Admissions and confessions, Waiver, Assistance of counsel, Voluntariness of statement, Interpreter, Instructions to jury, Hearsay, State of mind, Argument by prosecutor, Capital case, Confrontation of witnesses. Witness, Expert. Interpreter. Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on July 27, 2006. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Isaac Borenstein, J., and the cases were tried before John T. Lu, J. Jeffrey L. Baler for the defendant. Fawn D. Balliro Andersen, Assistant District Attorney (Lee Hettinger, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the Commonwealth. LENK, J. On May 20, 2006, the defendant beat his wife and eleven year old stepson to death with a hammer. He turned himself in and made a long statement to police in his native Portuguese. The statement was translated contemporaneously by an officer who was fluent in both Portuguese and English. Over the defendant’s objection, and following a hearing on his motion to suppress the statement, before a judge who was not the trial judge, the statement was introduced in evidence at the defendant’s trial in the Superior Court. The jury found the defendant guilty of two indictments charging murder in the first degree based on the theory of deliberate premeditation. The defendant claims that his statement to police should have been suppressed because its admission violated his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. He maintains also that certain out-of-court statements were admitted improperly under the state of mind exception to the rule against hearsay; that the prosecutor misstated the law of premeditation and misused the aforementioned out-of-court statements in his closing argument; and that the judge erred in denying his request for a voluntary manslaughter instruction. We reject the defendant’s claims, and, after review of the entire record pursuant to our obligation under G. L. c. 278, […]