Commonwealth v. Green (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-127-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 16-P-396 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. DARRYL S. GREEN. No. 16-P-396. Barnstable. May 3, 2017. – September 27, 2017. Present: Green, Wolohojian, Massing, Shin, & Ditkoff, JJ. Larceny. Building. Evidence, Admissions and confessions, Corroborative evidence. Practice, Criminal, Admissions and confessions, Sentence. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on June 12, 2015. The case was heard by Robert C. Rufo, J. Eric W. Ruben for the defendant. Elizabeth A. Sweeney, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. DITKOFF, J. The defendant appeals after his conviction at a jury-waived trial of stealing in a building, G. L. c. 266, § 20, arising out of his theft of $ 240 from the home of his recently murdered neighbors. This case requires us to consider the nature of the corroboration required to support a conviction based on a defendant’s confession and to discern the dividing line between property stolen from a building and property stolen from the custody of a person in the building. Concluding that the confession was adequately corroborated and that the evidence made out the crime of stealing in a building, we affirm.[1] Background. Sometime between the evening of June 11, 2013, and the early morning of June 12, 2013, Crystal Perry and Kristofer Williams were murdered in their home in Falmouth by persons unknown. At approximately 1:30 A.M. on June 12, police found their bodies in the kitchen and living room, surrounded by blood. The front door had been forced open and “[t]he house . . . had been . . . ransacked,” but jewelry and a wallet remained in the house. The defendant was a neighbor of the victims and suffered from a heroin addiction. The defendant had been working as a mason’s assistant for approximately two and one-half years. His boss paid him in cash at the end of each day, and the defendant “never had cash the next day.” When the defendant’s boss picked up the defendant the morning of June 12, the defendant showed him cash and said, “Let’s go get this,” meaning that they should purchase heroin together. It was more money than the defendant had been paid the day before. The defendant and his boss then purchased $ 200 to $ 300 of heroin. The defendant’s boss also noticed that the defendant was wearing rubber boots […]