Commonwealth v. Vasquez
130 N.E.3d 174, 482 Mass. 850 (2019)
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Rule of Law:
When a suspect does not speak English, Miranda warnings rendered by an untrained interpreter that are fragmented, incoherent, and fail to adequately convey the suspect's rights, particularly that anything they say can be used against them in court, are legally insufficient. Consequently, any subsequent waiver of rights is invalid, and both the statements and any physical evidence derived from them must be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree.
Facts:
- In January 2015, Radhames Gonzalez's girlfriend was found shot to death inside a parked SUV.
- Police recovered surveillance footage from a building across the street which captured an argument in Spanish, a gunshot, and a man getting out of the vehicle and running away.
- Three of the victim's family members were brought to the police station: her brother, Martino Diaz; his girlfriend, Abigail Martinez Melende; and the victim's teenage son, Juan Mendoza.
- Separately, each of the three family members listened to the audio from the footage and identified the voices as belonging to the victim and Gonzalez.
- Each family member then separately viewed the video portion and identified the man fleeing the vehicle as Gonzalez, based on his sneakers, clothing, body type, and movement.
- After his arrest, police determined Gonzalez had a limited command of English and had a Spanish-speaking officer, who was not a trained interpreter, translate the Miranda warnings.
- The officer's translation was flawed; for example, the warning that statements could be used against him was translated as, 'Any thing that you say can be against you ... the, of the court.'
- Following these warnings, Gonzalez spoke with police, denied involvement, gave them the passcode to his cellular telephone, and gave them verbal permission to search it.
Procedural Posture:
- The defendant, Radhames Gonzalez, was indicted in Superior Court on charges of murder and related firearms offenses.
- Gonzalez filed a series of motions to suppress witness identifications, his custodial statements, evidence from his cellular telephone, and cell site location information (CSLI).
- A first Superior Court judge denied the motions to suppress the identifications and the initial cell phone search, but granted the motion to suppress Gonzalez's statements to police.
- A second Superior Court judge denied the motion to suppress the CSLI.
- The Commonwealth filed an interlocutory appeal of the order suppressing the statements, and Gonzalez appealed the denial of his various motions to suppress.
- Single justices of the Supreme Judicial Court allowed the petitions for interlocutory review, and the cross-appeals were consolidated.
- The Supreme Judicial Court then granted the defendant's application for direct appellate review.
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Issue:
Does an untrained police officer's fragmented and incoherent Spanish translation of Miranda warnings, which fails to meaningfully convey the suspect's rights, render the suspect's subsequent waiver and statements invalid, thus requiring the suppression of both the statements and physical evidence obtained as a direct result?
Opinions:
Majority - Lenk, J.
Yes, a flawed translation of Miranda warnings invalidates a suspect's waiver and requires suppression of resulting evidence. The Spanish recitation of the warnings was so fragmented and confusing as to be incoherent, failing to provide meaningful advice upon which Gonzalez could knowingly act. The translation of the second warning—that anything said can be used against the suspect in court—was particularly deficient, rendering it a 'deficiency that wholly interfered with the full, accurate, and effective recitation' of his rights. This warning is an 'absolute prerequisite to interrogation.' Gonzalez's limited comprehension of 'street English' was insufficient to compensate for these defects, meaning his waiver was not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. Therefore, his custodial statements were properly suppressed. Furthermore, because his consent to search his cellular telephone and the discovery of his phone number derived directly from the unwarned statements, that evidence must also be suppressed as 'fruit of the poisonous tree' under the broader protections of Article 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Finally, after excising the illegally obtained phone number from the CSLI warrant application, the remaining affidavit failed to establish the necessary probable cause nexus between the crime and the location data sought, requiring the CSLI to be suppressed as well. The court affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress the witness identifications, finding the procedure was not unnecessarily suggestive and that the witnesses' familiarity with Gonzalez made their identifications sufficiently reliable.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the high standard required for administering Miranda warnings to non-English-speaking suspects, emphasizing that a perfunctory or flawed translation by an untrained officer is constitutionally inadequate. It solidifies the principle under Massachusetts state law that physical evidence derived from a Miranda violation is subject to the exclusionary rule, a protection broader than that offered by the Fifth Amendment under federal precedent. The ruling also serves as a crucial reminder for law enforcement about the nexus requirement for CSLI warrants; police cannot engage in a 'fishing expedition' but must demonstrate with probable cause that the specific historical location data sought is directly related to the crime under investigation.
