Commonwealth v. Foster (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-063-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-11596 COMMONWEALTH vs. STEPHEN FOSTER. Bristol. November 7, 2014. – April 15, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Cordy, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Homicide. Robbery. Felony-Murder Rule. Probable Cause. Search and Seizure, Probable cause, Warrant, Affidavit. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Motion to suppress, Warrant, Affidavit, Duplicative convictions. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on December 11, 2009. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Renee P. Dupuis, J., and the cases were tried before Robert J. Kane, J. Dana Alan Curhan for the defendant. Sebastian Jose Pacheco, Assistant District Attorney (David B. Mark, Assistant District Attorney, with him) for the Commonwealth. DUFFLY, J. In December, 2009, the defendant was indicted on charges of murder in the first degree, armed robbery, receiving stolen property, and carrying a firearm without a license, in the shooting death of Hegazy Sayed. In May, 2012, the defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant from his room in a “sober house.” After an evidentiary hearing that took place in eight nonconsecutive days over the course of one year, the motion was denied, and the case proceeded to trial before a different judge of the Superior Court. The defendant’s motion for a required finding of not guilty was denied. Before submitting the case to the jury, the judge dismissed the charges of carrying a firearm without a license and of receiving stolen property. A Superior Court jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate premeditation and felony-murder, and also found the defendant guilty of armed robbery. The armed robbery conviction was dismissed subject to being reviewed for sentencing if the murder conviction were reversed on appeal. On appeal, the defendant argues that the motion judge erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence seized from his residence pursuant to a search warrant, and all other evidence seized as a result of that initial search, because there was no probable cause that he was the perpetrator, and also because, even if there were evidence of his involvement in the robbery and killing, no nexus was established to show that evidence of the crimes would be found in his room. The defendant also requests that we exercise our authority to provide relief […]
Commonwealth v. Foster F., a juvenile (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-159-14)
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 13-P-1427 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. FOSTER F., a juvenile. No. 13-P-1427. Barnstable. October 9, 2014. – December 10, 2014. Present: Berry, Hanlon, & Carhart, JJ. Indecent Assault and Battery. Practice, Criminal, Juvenile delinquency proceeding, Argument by prosecutor. Evidence, Juvenile delinquency, Authentication of document, Verbal completeness. Witness, Victim. Internet. Complaint received and sworn to in the Barnstable County/ Town of Plymouth Division of the Juvenile Court Department on March 20, 2012. The case was tried before Mary O’Sullivan Smith. Rebecca Rose for the juvenile. Suzanne D. McDonough, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. CARHART, J. The juvenile appeals from an adjudication of delinquency by reason of indecent assault and battery, arguing that the judge erroneously allowed in evidence Facebook[1] communications and the entire transcript of the victim’s Sexual Abuse Intervention Network (SAIN) interview. The juvenile also argues that the prosecutor’s improper closing argument warrants reversal. We reverse. Background. The jury heard the following testimony. On January 28, 2012, the juvenile met the victim and her friends Gwen and Nancy[2] at a park in downtown Plymouth. They met to play a “dating game,” wherein the juvenile would spend some time with each of the three girls and then decide which girl he wanted to date. While each of the girls had been communicating with the juvenile through Facebook, they had not met him in person until they all went ice skating some two weeks earlier. The victim’s and the juvenile’s Facebook communications included explicit sexual exchanges. On January 28, the juvenile spent time alone talking with Gwen and, later, Nancy. The victim testified that, when it was her turn to be alone with the juvenile, she and the juvenile went behind a monument and began kissing on a bench. At some point, the victim started to walk away, but the juvenile convinced her not to leave. She returned, they sat on a different bench, and the juvenile began “dry humping” her. The victim tried to push him away, and started walking away again. As the two were walking toward the monument, the juvenile pushed the victim against the monument and started sucking on her ear. He then sat the victim down and pinned her legs. Despite the victim’s orders to stop, the juvenile placed his hand inside her pants and inserted several […]