Commonwealth v. Feeney (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-098-13)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 12‑P‑164 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. KEVIN FEENEY. No. 12‑P‑164. Suffolk. April 3, 2013. ‑ August 12, 2013. Present: Grasso, Katzmann, & Grainger, JJ. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement, Waiver. Constitutional Law, Admissions and confessions, Waiver of constitutional rights. Evidence, Admissions and confessions, Voluntariness of statement. Waiver. Complaint found and returned in the Charlestown Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department on January 31, 2011. Following transfer to the Central Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department, a pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Annette Forde, J. An application for leave to prosecute an interlocutory appeal was allowed by Francis X. Spina, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk, and the appeal was reported by him to the Appeals Court. Donna Jalbert Patalano, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Krista M. Larsen for the defendant. KATZMANN, J. After an evidentiary hearing, a District Court judge partially allowed the defendant’s motion to suppress his statements identifying incriminating evidence as his and an inventory sheet that he signed. The police had obtained the evidence via a ruse that the judge determined violated the defendant’s rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Commonwealth has pursued an interlocutory appeal and argues that the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his constitutional right to remain silent and that the police ruse did not overbear the defendant’s free will. We agree and reverse the motion judge’s decision to suppress. Background. 1. We begin with a summary of the motion judge’s findings, supplemented by uncontroverted testimony from the suppression hearing that the motion judge implicitly credited. See Commonwealth v. Washington, 449 Mass. 476, 477 (2007). On the night of January 31, 2011, State police Trooper Manning was conducting traffic enforcement at the Route 99 rotary in Charlestown. At roughly 1:20 A.M., he observed a white Cadillac automobile approach the rotary and without stopping, or even slowing down at a stop sign, accelerate to a speed of up to forty miles per hour and drive through the rotary. Trooper Manning put on his headlights and drove after the Cadillac. Upon observing the Cadillac drive through a red light on Cambridge Street, Trooper Manning activated his blue lights and his “takedown […]