Commonwealth v. Sullivan

Summary

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that indictments charging Joseph Sullivan and Derrick Gentry-Mitchell with misleading investigators did not violate art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Although the indictments alleged multiple misleading statements made at different times, the statements concerned the same underlying assault and constituted a continuing course of conduct arising from a single intent or general scheme. The court vacated the Superior Court judge’s order dismissing the indictments.

Holdings

1. An indictment charging one count of misleading investigators does not violate art. 12 where the alleged statements, although made at different times to different investigators, constituted a continuing course of conduct actuated by a single, continuing criminal impulse or intent or undertaken pursuant to a general scheme to conceal the same underlying event.
2. The use of different investigators and the disjunctive listing of dates did not violate art. 12 because the essential crime charged was the defendants' continuing effort to mislead investigators concerning the April 2015 assault, and the dates were not essential elements of the offense.

Questions Presented

1. Whether indictments charging a single count of misleading investigators based on multiple misleading statements made on different dates to different investigators violated art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
2. Whether the alleged statements constituted unrelated separate acts requiring separate indictments, or instead were part of a single continuing criminal impulse, intent, or general scheme to conceal the same underlying event.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded