Commonwealth v. Chism, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-004-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 SJC-11939 COMMONWEALTH vs. PHILIP CHISM & others.[1] Suffolk. September 7, 2016. – January 4, 2017. Present: Gants, C.J., Botsford, Hines, Gaziano, & Budd, JJ. Impoundment. Fair Trial. Evidence, Videotape. Public Records. Constitutional Law, Impoundment order, Fair trial. Practice, Criminal, Impoundment order, Motion to suppress, Record, Fair trial. Uniform Rules on Impoundment Procedure. Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on February 6, 2015. The case was heard by Duffly, J. Jonathan M. Albano (Emma D. Hall with him) for Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC. Patrick Levin, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for the defendant. Zachary C. Kleinsasser, for Eagle Tribune Publishing Company, Inc., was present but did not argue. GANTS, C.J. The issue on appeal is whether a Superior Court judge committed an error of law or abused his discretion in denying a defendant’s motion to impound a video recording and transcript of a police interview with the defendant that was the subject of a motion to suppress and that was subsequently suppressed. We conclude that the judge applied the correct legal standard in deciding that motion. We also conclude that, where the judge considered both the presumption of public access to judicial records and the defendant’s right to a trial decided by a fair and impartial jury, and where he subsequently forbade the duplication of the video recording and transcript, the judge did not abuse his discretion in denying the motion. Background. In the early evening of October 22, 2013, the defendant’s mother informed the Danvers police department that the defendant, who was fourteen years old at the time, was missing. Shortly after midnight on October 23, a Danvers police officer located the defendant walking on a road in Topsfield and transported him to the Topsfield police station, where the backpack he had been carrying was inventoried and he was briefly questioned by the police. The defendant was then transported to the Danvers police station, where, in the presence of his mother, he was interviewed at approximately 2:30 A.M. by a State trooper and a Danvers police sergeant. The entire interview was video recorded. During this interview, the defendant admitted that he had killed Colleen Ritzer (victim), a teacher at Danvers High School, and described the killing and the […]