The Freedom Bulletin

The suppression hearing in the Thomas Mortimer IV case finished up today with testimony from four state troopers who executed search warrants in the quadruple murder case. To sum up, on Friday we learned that officers made three warrantless searches of the Winchester, MA home where Mortimer lived with his wife, Laura Stone Mortimer, mother-in-law, Ellen Stone, son Thomas “Finn” Mortimer V, and daughter Charlotte Mortimer. The first was to conduct a well-being check at the request of Laura’s sister, Debra Stone Sochat, the second was to remove Ellen’s dog from the home, and the third was a more thorough sweep of the home to make sure there were no injured people or a suspect. Mortimer’s defense lawyer, Denise Regan, filed a motion to suppress all evidence gathered as a result of these searches because they took place before any search warrants were issued. She also filed a motion to suppress evidence that was gathered after search warrants arrived but was outside the scope of the warrants, and it was that motion that was the focus of today’s testimony.

Witness by witness, here’s what the court heard today:

Trooper David Twomey of the state police searched Mortimer’s home in the late afternoon of June 16, 2010, pursuant to a warrant. He found five “separately designated,” typed copies of a letter that Mortimer allegedly wrote, confessing to killing his wife, children, and mother-in-law. One was in the trash in the kitchen, along with bloodstained napkins, Quaker granola bar boxes, batteries, and a bluish pill. Another letter was on the coffee table in the family room, where Laura’s and Finn’s bodies were found, along with more pills, two glasses, and a can of Red Bull. Another letter was on the kitchen counter, and yet another was on the kitchen table. Additionally, in the basement, near the door leading from the house to the garage, were plastic bags with “what appeared to be vomit and clothing,” which Twomey indicated were large enough to fit over an adult’s head. A red Lexus in the garage had a garden hose hooked up from the exhaust pipe to the window, as well as a hammer and a knife in the passenger seat, and in the laundry room was more prescription medication. During cross-examination, Twomey was asked if he read the letter on the coffee table, and he admitted, “I did peruse through it, but my primary function was to document the scene.” He also said that the letters in the trash weren’t ripped up and weren’t visible until he went through the trash.

Trooper Jeffrey Saunders, also of the state police, kept a record of all items seized during the search of the home. He found typewritten letters in a wastebasket in the basement, near a computer and printer, which he read and which “appeared similar” to the others found in the house.

Sgt. Robert Manning was in charge of the search of the house and was the one who actually brought the search warrant applications to a superior court judge. (He was familiar to me because he questioned Neil Entwistle and testified in his trial.) After getting a search warrant for the home at 4:40 p.m. on June 16, he obtained a warrant for Mortimer’s arrest in the early morning hours of June 17. Cell tower records indicated at one point that Mortimer was near Andover, MA, and his cell phone was found in the trash at a gas station in that area. A bulletin was sent out to the public to be on alert for him, and Manning was informed of Mortimer’s arrest after police received a tip from the small town of Bernardston, MA. That evening he obtained and executed additional warrants for the three computers in the Winchester home and for documents and financial records. In the home he noticed three pieces of evidence consistent with a suicide attempt: the hose attached to the car exhaust pipe, the bag with clothing with vomit on it, and the prescription drugs on the coffee table, which he described as a sleep aid in Ellen’s name. There were also receipts, a bank statement, and an unemployment assistance form.

Trooper Scott McCormack described the search of the home. In the laundry room, “there was a considerable amount of blood on the floor, as well as two handbags that were strewn about.” He also mentioned the pieces of evidence that were consistent with a suicide attempt, adding that the clothing in the plastic bag was men’s clothing. Additionally, he searched the car that Mortimer was driving when he was arrested, a Toyota Highlander. His wallet was in the front driver’s side, containing less than $100 cash, two TD Bank cards in Tom’s and Laura’s names, Tom’s Brookline Bank debit card, Laura’s American Express, and two Simon gift cards, one of which had a phone number on it that was found in the phone records of Ellen’s landline. Right before this call, at 7:22 a.m. on June 15, the same phone had called both Tom’s employer and Finn’s day care, and interviews with those two places indicated that Tom had called himself and his son in sick. McCormack said of this evidence, “I believe that they showed that…Thomas Mortimer needed some sort of financial means to maintain his existence on the run, on the flight.” A lottery ticket in the car, with a date of June 12, was, according to him, “a chance at financial means to be gained after the homicide.” Batteries, a water bottle, and a flashlight were in the console, and a PowerAde, a roll of toilet paper, strewn-about clothing, and a gallon of water were in the back seat. A backpack in the wayback contained wipes, water bottles, plastic silverware, and Quaker granola bars, and a duffel bag contained gauze pads, ointment, a sewing kit, and more clothes. According to a receipt in the car, Mortimer used his wife’s American Express card to purchase Peppermint Patties at Hess Express in Winchester at 7:44 a.m. on June 15.  All these items, McCormack said, “showed…Mr. Mortimer’s actions after the murders. Obviously flight was his intention, which would again go to consciousness of guilt.”

It looks like Mortimer may have tried to kill himself in four different ways…but (obviously) none of them worked.

After a very brief recess for a court procedure in another case, prosecutor Adrienne Lynch said that she would have called another witness, Trooper Jay McCartney, but because he was unavailable, both sides stipulated to what he would have testified: that he executed a search warrant in the house and car, could describe the contents of the trash and car, saw bloodstains, and photographed all this evidence.

On Friday, there were mentions of two defense witnesses who would be called today, but they never ended up taking the stand. After the defense files a supplemental memorandum, the next court date, for oral arguments on the suppression motions, will be October 24 at 9:00 a.m.

More from the Winchester Patch and Winchester Star.

Remember Thomas Mortimer IV, the Winchester, MA man accused of four murders? After a long time without any hearings in his case, there was a pretty big one today. Mortimer’s defense team filed a two motions to suppress evidence, one based on a warrantless search and the other on a search that exceeded the scope of the warrant.

Mortimer, 44, stands accused of the first-degree murders of his wife, Laura Stone Mortimer, mother-in-law Ragna Ellen Stone, and children Thomas “Finn” Mortimer V and Charlotte Mortimer. Seven witnesses took the stand today, including Laura’s sister, Debra Stone Sochat, to describe the day the four bodies were discovered.

Mortimer entered the courtroom at about 9:10, calm and somewhat detached-looking, wearing the same outfit that he has worn at previous hearings – a light blue shirt, crimson tie, and khaki pants. He wore handcuffs and chains around his ankles for the entire hearing and sat at the defense table with his lawyers, Denise Regan and Eva Vekos.

The hearing, before Middlesex Superior Court Judge Leila R. Kern, opened with a brief discussion of a defense motion to sequester the witnesses. Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Lynch argued that Debra Sochat should be allowed to watch the other witnesses’ testimony because “she is the survivor of these four homicide victims and she would like to be at the hearing.” Both sides quickly agreed that Debra, the second witness of the day, should sit out the first witness’s testimony but could be there for the rest.

Here is a rundown of what we learned at the hearing, witness by witness:

Daniel P. Murphy is Debra Stone Sochat’s neighbor. A retired mechanic at the Winchester Department of Public Works, he is friendly with many of the police and firefighters in the town. He described how on June 16, 2010 he drove with Debra and her two children to the home at 2 Windsong Lane where her mother, sister, niece, nephew, and brother-in-law lived. Debra was worried because she hadn’t been able to reach her mother in two days. After unsuccessfully trying all the doors and looking in the windows, Murphy offered to kick down the main door, between the house and the garage, but ended up calling the Winchester Police Department when they noticed that the house had an alarm that might go off. While waiting for the police to arrive, Murphy saw a chilling sight through the windows near the main door: “some bloodstains on the floor and on the switch if you look through the window.” Firefighters broke open the door and he and Debra followed. “I got about two steps in the door,” Murphy testified, when the firefighters “rushed us out of the house.” He tried to calm Debra down, saying “she was just worried and nervous about her mother…had a feeling like there might have been something bad like she fell down the stairs or something.”

Debra Stone Sochat, Laura Mortimer’s sister and Ellen Stone’s daughter, took the stand looking somber but composed, with a black v-neck dress and her blond hair in a bun. “I saw my mother every day,” she said, adding that she spoke to her “at least five times a day.” Her parents, Ellen and David Stone, had owned the Windsong Lane home for 35 years, but their divorce was just becoming finalized at the time of Ellen’s death, and David had moved out a while ago.

She had plans on June 15 to have Ellen over and prepare her mother’s favorite dinner. The last time the two spoke by phone, on June 14, Ellen “was really looking forward to having the dinner and she sounded very happy.” Debra also spoke to her sister on the 14th, about a possible trip to Martha’s Vineyard that weekend. “Tom didn’t really want to go but they were still talking about it and they were still thinking they were going to go,” Debra explained, adding that their father had bought a boat for 4-year-old Finn and wanted him to see it. The next morning, June 15th, Debra called Laura on her cell phone to set up a playdate for Finn, 2-year-old Charlotte, and her two children, Alexandra, 2 1/2, and Christian, 8 months. Tom answered, which Debra considered “very unusual.” “Hi Tom, how are you?” she asked. He replied, “Hi Debbie, how are you?” and told her when she asked for Laura, “She’s upstairs, she’s busy. She’ll have to call you back…It’s going to be a while before she calls you back.”

The entire day, Debra repeatedly tried to contact her mother, sister, and brother-in-law on their land lines and cell phones. She and her family even ate the dinner they had prepared for Ellen, thinking that she may have just lost her phone, which she had done “many times before.” When neither Ellen’s best friend nor her brother had heard from her, Debra’s husband, David Sochat, became worried, saying “I think we should go over there. I have a funny feeling that something’s wrong.” However, Debra vetoed the idea because “Laura and Tom have a very strict schedule with the children. They’re always in bed by 8:30…They’re very regimented with their schedule.”

The next morning, however, when she still could not reach anyone, Debra decided to go over. Her concern grew when she saw that the trash barrels were still out in the street from the day before, and that the cars were not arranged how they usually were. “I knew at that point that something was strange,” she testified. She and her neighbor, Dan Murphy, tried all the windows and doors but heard nothing except Ellen’s dog barking in an upstairs bedroom. Through the windows near the front door she saw “a light switch on the wall…which had blood on it.” She added, “There was blood smeared on the panel of the wood going up the stairs, there was blood on the floor, there was blood on the wall going up the stairs.” The oriental rug that Ellen had just gotten cleaned and “had been asking Tom for months to help put down” was missing. “I was hoping in my heart that it was a misunderstanding and I didn’t want the police to show up,” she said, but eventually she and Murphy agreed that calling the police was the best thing to do. Lt. Steven Osborne of the Winchester Fire Department arrived, entered the house, and “told me to leave immediately, that my mother had fallen.” Debra explained that her mother “had some medical issues so I was very worried.” She waited in the car with her children, who kept asking whether they would get to see “Cha Cha,” their nickname for their grandmother. Finally, officers came out of the house and told Debra the tragic news.

When asked what she would have done if the police hadn’t come, she said, ”I would have thrown a rock through a window and gone in myself to check on my mother.”

Lt. Steven Osborne of the Winchester Fire Department responded to Dan Murphy’s call and was the first to enter the Windsong Lane house to conduct a well-being check. He explained that he regularly conducts well-being checks when there is a person that family members or neighbors can’t get in touch with and are worried about. He broke down the door to the house after walking around and knocking on all the doors unsuccessfully. “I saw a person lying on the floor,” he said, and nearby he saw a child’s body covered with a blanket, which he lifted up to reveal a “large wound to the neck.” He “immediately realized it was a crime scene and backed out of the building,” and informed the police when they arrived that there were two bodies in the house. During cross-examination by defense attorney Regan, he admitted that the fire department has no written guidelines or formal training regarding well-being checks.

Officer Claude Austin of the Winchester Police Department responded to the house and was told by Osborne, “It’s bad, we have two bodies.” He told his officers to spread out around the house and went inside. The bodies near the main door were “basically covered with blood” and there were “trails of blood” on the floor, as well as bloody footprints leading to the living room. The boy’s body – which turned out to be Finn – was “ice cold” and “laying over a pool of blood, his throat had been sliced, his eyes were open, pale to the touch, just lifeless.” The woman’s body nearby – later identified as Laura – was surrounded by 4-5 pints of blood, and Austin said, “the only way to tell where the face was, as opposed to the back of the head, was hair.” A roll of paper towels was on the floor nearby, “as if someone was trying to clean up but it was something they couldn’t handle.” Leading to the front hallway were “drops of blood,” which he followed, with his gun drawn, and discovered Ellen’s body in the living room with a rug “placed right over the whole body…in a manner to just cover it.” More blood droplets led up the stairs, where Austin heard a TV and a dog barking and called for backup. He looked in all the rooms, noticing a frying pan on one bed, which he considered “peculiar,” and in what looked like a child’s bedroom found a horrible scene. In the crib, he said, “I saw a baby in a fetal position with a pool of blood underneath.” After scanning all the rooms – except the attic and basement – to make sure there were no injured or dangerous people – the officers left. In the garage Austin noticed that a garden hose was hooked up to the car’s exhaust, with the windows shut, which he described as consistent with a suicide attempt. Additionally, there were a knife and a hammer on the passenger seat. Finally, he entered the house a second time to escort the dog, who had been trapped in the upstairs bedroom, out of the house so he wouldn’t be running around in the crime scene.

Sgt. Thomas Groux came to the crime scene as Lt. Austin’s backup. “It’s bad in there,” Austin told him. He entered the house and saw the bodies, which he described as having “massive trauma,” with Laura in a “pool of blood” and Finn with his “throat cut to the point where throat organs were hanging out.” Like Austin did, he described finding Ellen’s body and the trail of blood droplets going up the stairs. “We started going up to commence a search of the second floor,” he said, where he found Charlotte’s body. “There was a massive amount of blood in the crib itself,” he said, adding that trauma to her neck was visible although she was partially covered by a blanket. After leaving the house, Groux was “unsatisfied with the protective sweep that we had done…I just didn’t think the home was searched thoroughly enough for safety reasons.” So he and three other officers re-entered the house to check the basement and the bedroom where the dog was, which Austin hadn’t entered because he didn’t want the dog to escape. On cross-examination, he admitted that another Winchester police officer, Det. Wilkinson, entered the house to take pictures but “disengaged” because state police were taking over the investigation. He could not be 100% sure that Lt. McDonnell (or anyone else) hadn’t re-entered the house after he left, and additionally he said that he did not see any notes or letters in the house, which is significant because Mortimer is reported to have left letters confessing to the killings.

After a lunch break we heard from Trooper Scott McCormack of the Massachusetts State Police. When he arrived on the scene he was told that the home wasn’t secured, so he conducted a protective sweep with Sgt. Groux and other officers. “There was a distinct smell of human decomposition,” he said. “Finn was lying on his back…he had a very deliberate wound to his neck. It was very significant. His eyes were half open. He was covered in blood. He was lying in a pool of blood.” Near the bodies of Laura and Ellen, he observed “a tremendous amount of blood,” signs of a struggle including an overturned plant, and “a very distinctive dragging pattern.” Along with the other officers, he conducted a sweep of the entire house, including the attic, saying that “obviously it would heighten your sense of security.” He never looked anywhere other than where a person could be hiding, he said, nor did he enter the house again before a search warrant was issued later in the day. He spoke to Lt. McDonnell outside the home and said, “He clearly had been moved from what he’d observed. He was very emotional.” During cross-examination, he said that he had never been told that Winchester police had searched most of the house. He said that he observed notes in the home only after the issuance of the warrant. Regan mentioned various things that had happened as a result of the entry into the home: Mortimer’s car was seized and searched, he was arrested and taken to the Winchester police station, injuries were observed on him, biological samples were taken from him, photographs were taken of him, he spoke to his parents by phone, and he was overheard saying certain things (it wasn’t mentioned what exactly what these things were), which were confirmed in subsequent interviews with his parents.

The final witness of the day, Lt. Peter McDonnell of the Winchester Police Department, responded to the initial call for a well-being check at the Windsong Lane home. Sgt. Groux told him of the four bodies and that one bedroom and the basement had not been secured, so he participated in checking the home thoroughly along with Groux and Trooper McCormack. He did not, however, move or take any items.

Throughout all this testimony, Mortimer showed little emotion, at times whispering and nodding to his lawyers and smiling briefly on one occasion.

The hearing adjourned for the day at 3:00 but is still not over. Testimony is set to continue on Monday morning, I believe with two firefighters called by the defense.

More articles about today’s hearing from AP, Boston Globe, NECN, Winchester Patch, and Winchester Star.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that people have the right to videotape and record police officers performing their duties. The ruling came in the case of Simon Glik, a Boston lawyer who filmed police arresting someone on Boston Common. He was charged with disturbing the peace, aiding in the escape of a prisoner, and illegal wiretapping, as he recorded audio of the arrest without permission. The charges were (thankfully) dropped, and Glik sued law enforcement officials for violating his First and Fourth Amendment rights. The Court of Appeals agreed with him, writing:

“Glik was exercising clearly established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly-established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause.”

Read the rest at MassLive.com.

The case of Neil Entwistle presents a difficult dilemma. The crimes that he was convicted of in 2008 – the first-degree murders of his wife Rachel and 9-month-old daughter Lillian – are considered by many people to be among the worst crimes imaginable. But it is also true that police broke into his house with no warrant and no probable cause.

In his appellate brief, Entwistle, through his lawyer, Steven Maidman, argues that the search of his Hopkinton, Mass., house violated the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, as well as Article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.

First a quick rundown of the facts: Rachel’s parents and best friend became concerned when she did not answer the door for a planned dinner. They notified the Hopkinton Police Department, and as a result officers used a Blockbuster card to break in through the locked door, walked through the house, looked in all the rooms, opened the mail, and turned on the digital camera. They failed to find the bodies of Rachel and her 9-month-old daughter Lillian, covered with blankets in their bed. When Rachel’s friends and family members became even more worried, the cops returned the next day, entered the house through the garage using the code that a neighbor gave them, and ultimately found the bodies.

I have to agree with team Entwistle that the police officers’ actions were wrong and violated the Constitution. As Entwistle’s appellate brief sets forth, “Searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable…But, the presumption of unreasonableness associated with the warrantless search of a home can be overcome when the police are faced with exigent circumstances.” Some examples of exigent circumstances would be a fire or if officers “have a reasonable basis to believe there may be someone inside who is injured or in imminent danger of physical harm.” Searching a home for evidence, however, does not fall under this category: “A warrantless entry to search for weapons or contraband is unconstitutional even when a felony has been committed and there is probable cause to believe that incriminating evidence will be found within.”

In Entwistle’s case, the police had no information that anyone was injured and saw no visible blood, fire, or property damage. Even though Neil, Rachel, and Lillian’s apparent disappearance was unusual and suspicious, there was no emergency that required the cops to break into the house on either of the two occasions. The second search, Entwistle’s lawyer writes, was by the officers’ own admissions for the sole purpose of looking for paperwork or other evidence that would help locate the Enwtistles. In short, “the federal and state constitutions have never permitted warrantless searches of homes by the police to rummage for paperwork or for other evidence that may help locate missing people.”

Although it is difficult and likely extremely unpopular to say so, I think Entwistle should be granted a new trial and the evidence seized as a result of the unconstitutional searches should be thrown out. The Bill of Rights safeguards the liberty and privacy of all people, including those who find themselves accused, truly or falsely, of horrible crimes. These fundamental rights cannot be suspended no matter how hated a person is or how guilty they may seem.

Read Entwistle’s appellate brief here (PDF).

Yesterday (Friday) during my lunch break, I decided to go to the Supreme Judicial Court and see if I could get a copy of Neil Entwistle‘s appellate brief, which he filed on Wednesday. It turns out that the clerk’s office does not have electronic versions or make copies to give out, but I was able to borrow their copy of the brief, go to the nearby Kinko’s, copy it, and make a PDF file, the link to which can be found below. It contains the full text of the 50-page brief, but without the table of contents or the appendices, which I decided to leave out because it cost money per page.

So without further ado, for anyone who is interested, here is the Defendant’s Brief in Commonwealth v. Neil Entwistle, SJC-10788.

My comments will be coming later!

Neil Entwistle filed a brief today in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts appealing his two first-degree murder convictions. In what was, incidentally, the first legal case I ever attended, Entwistle was convicted in June 2008 of murdering his wife, Rachel, and baby, Lillian.

Not surprisingly, Entwistle’s appellate lawyer, Steven Paul Maidman, focused on the warrantless search of Entwistle’s Hopkinton home, carried out by police officers at the request of worried friends and relatives. He also argues that the trial judge did not adequately question jurors about their exposure to (often sensational and biased) media coverage of the case.

Source: AP/Boston Herald

This is truly awful:

“In March 2005, Mr. Florence was in the passenger seat of his BMW when a state trooper pulled it over for speeding. His wife, April, was driving. His 4-year-old son, Shamar, was in the back.

The trooper ran a records search, and he found an outstanding warrant based on the supposedly unpaid fine. Mr. Florence showed the trooper the document, but he was arrested anyway.

A failure to pay a fine is not a crime. It is, rather, what New Jersey law calls a nonindictable offense. Mr. Florence was nonetheless held for eight days in two counties on a charge of civil contempt before matters were sorted out.

In the process, he was strip-searched twice.”

This guy, Albert Florence, was sexually assaulted for allegedly not paying a fine on a traffic violation, even though he actually paid it. How could the government of New Jersey think this is okay? Strip searches with no probable cause shouldn’t even be allowed for people convicted of the most serious crimes, let alone people merely accused of crimes, let alone people accused of something that isn’t even a crime.

Very sadly, several courts have upheld such degrading and suspicionless searches, starting with Bell v. Wolfish in 1979, although other courts have ruled that strip searches can only take place when the inmate is reasonably suspected of having weapons or contraband. I hope that the Supreme Court takes Mr. Florence’s case and stands up for human dignity by taking the latter view.