Commonwealth v. Callender

32 Mass. L. Rptr. 49
CourtMassachusetts Superior Court
DecidedMarch 4, 2014
DocketNo. BRCR200800504
StatusPublished

This text of 32 Mass. L. Rptr. 49 (Commonwealth v. Callender) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Callender, 32 Mass. L. Rptr. 49 (Mass. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

Kane, Robert J., J.

Facing indictments for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, armed assault with intent to murder and first degree murder, the defendant, Brandon Callender, moves to suppress statements gathered by the Commonwealth, pursuant to G.L.c. 277, §68. He maintains that subpoenaing records of his telephone conversations while housed at the Suffolk and Bristol County Houses of Correction contravened G.L.c. 277, §68 and violated his privacy rights protected under the United States and Massachusetts Constitutions.

As an independent ground for suppressing the records, Callender contests the authority of the Suffolk County and Bristol County Sheriffs’ Departments to intercept, record and retain the calls. The Sheriffs claim that the regulations on detainee telephone calls serve valid penological interests, but Callender argues that those interests fail to constitute a reasonable basis for recording, monitoring and retaining records of a pretrial detainee’s private telephone conversations.

Based on the findings of fact and rulings of law, this court is satisfied that the recording and monitoring of detainee calls served valid penological interests and did not violate Callender’s privacy rights protected under the United States and Massachusetts Constitutions. Additionally, the court finds and rules that the [50]*50grand jury subpoenas failed to conform with G.L.c. 277, §68 but that the violation was not committed in bad faith and failed to amount to a violation of any constitutional right. Due to the absence of a constitutional violation or bad faith the court declines to suppress the subpoenaed material because of the statutory violation. Finally, the court determines that the subpoenas’ facial overbreadth can be remedied by discrete excisions.

FINDINGS OF FACT

On November 24, November 25, and December 4, 2013, the court listened to testimony, and received exhibits that addressed the origins and executions of subpoenas to the Suffolk and Bristol Couniy Sheriffs Departments for production to a Bristol County grand jury — "In re: Brandon Callender Witness Intimidation." The two grand jury subpoenas bore the signature of Special Assistant District Attorney Steven E. Gagne. Both subpoenas demanded production of “copies of any audio-recorded telephone calls ... as well as any documents or logs associated with said calls.” Each subpoena offered the record holder the option of avoiding an appearance before the grand jury by forwarding the information to the Assistant District Attorney.

Evidence presented at the hearing also examined policies, practices, and rationales endorsed by the Suffolk and Bristol County Sheriffs Departments for intercepting all inmate calls, except for those involving attorney-client communications.

My findings begin with a review of the proceedings in the murder case because defense counsel claims that the prosecutor’s use of the grand jury subpoenas had, as its purpose, mitigating the loss of evidence occasioned by this court’s allowance of a motion to suppress statements made by Callender on April 7, 2008.

i. Arrest and Interrogation

On April 7, 2008, Fairhaven and state police, including Massachusetts State Trooper Robert Lima, and Fairhaven Detective Jerald Bettencourt, arrested Callender for the murder of Joshua Fitzgerald. The arrest occurred at a New Bedford apartment where Callender had been sleeping. The police found a Gangster Disciples’ ‘code of conduct’ on Callender’s bed.

Callender was transported to the Fairhaven Police Department. At the station, Callender was advised of his Miranda rights, exercised his right to silence, followed by being re-advised of his Miranda rights, and then questioned. The questioning by Lima and Bettencourt elicited statements from Callender relevant to the murder of Joshua Fitzgerald, and in certain instances, incriminating Callender in the homicide. Callender admitted to being in a fight with Fitzgerald. He stated that Fitzgerald had struck him with a two-by-four which caused him to pick up a knife and stab Fitzgerald.

In May of2008, a Bristol Couniy grand jury indicted Callender for first degree murder. His arraignment occurred on September 5, 2008, with Attorney John Moses (“Moses”) appointed to represent him.

Attorney Moses moved to suppress Callender’s April 7, 2008 statements on the ground that the statements had been taken in violation of his Miranda rights. Over the course of four sittings, the court received exhibits, and heard testimony on that motion to suppress. On September 10, 2009, the court issued a decision allowing the motion to suppress. The Commonwealth timely appealed. From September 22, 2009 until February 21, 2012, the case was before the appellate courts. The Appeals Court eventually affirmed this court’s allowance of the motion to suppress.

ii. “MG” letter

Meanwhile, ADA Gagne, who had been involved in the Callender prosecution from its inception, received a letter sent by an inmate at the Bristol County House of Correction sometime after March 26, 2010. That letter’s envelope bore as the address “DA’s Office, 888 Purchase Street #5, New Bedford, MA02740.” By some quirk or logic, the letter ended up on Gagne’s desk.

The letter composed an erratic presentation. On one hand, the writer, given the pseudonym “MG,” professes to want “to make the communily safe for our kids.” On the other hand, MG asks the Commonwealth to give him the “opportunity to . . . continue [his] education.”

Generally, MG made vague promises. MG promised that, within a month, the Commonwealth would “have dozens of guns, bricks of work, mad drugs, over $100,000, and more than 20 luxury cars . . .” In one instance, MG became quite specific, mentioning that “a inmate keep telling me that he will make show his witness don’t show by any ineans before he do 15 years.”

MG’s mention of the inmate talking about “doing 15 years” caused Gagne to recall negotiations with Callender over a second degree murder plea. In Gagne’s mind, such a plea could carry fifteen years. This association caused Gagne to look into MG’s Bristol House of Correction records.

The records revealed that Callender and MG had been housed together for one day. According to the records, on April 8, 2010, MG had attempted to hang himself. In MG’s shirt pocket correctional staff found a one-page “inmate property inventoiy sheet” that contained handwritten notes in black and blue ink. The notes appeared in various places on the sheet’s front and back. According to the attending correctional officer, the notes contained information about a murder, harming a witness and a “G.D.” By the time Gagne retrieved the records, MG had been released.

Notice of Callender and MG rooming together caused Gagne, accompanied by Bettencourt, to travel [51]*51to State Street, New Bedford, to look for MG. Their search proved to be unsuccessful. Gagne enlisted Trooper Lima to attempt to find out about and locate MG.

Lima examined the inventory sheet, and observed that it was written in black and blue ink. Some of the notes referred to a stabbing, resulting in the victim dying at the hospital. Another note referred to the co-defendant (Thomas Opozda) last having the knife and that the person relating this information believed that his DNA would not be found on the knife as he had not been sweating.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
32 Mass. L. Rptr. 49, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-callender-masssuperct-2014.