Commonwealth v. Valerio DiGiambattista

Summary

The court reversed the defendant’s arson conviction because his confession was involuntary under the totality of the circumstances, where police used fabricated evidence of an apparently conclusive identification together with repeated minimization of the crime and implied promises of counseling or leniency. The court declined to expand the corroboration requirement for confessions, but announced that defendants are entitled on request to a cautionary jury instruction when an interrogation at a place of detention or a custodial interrogation was not completely electronically recorded. Justice Spina, dissenting, and Justice Greaney, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have upheld the confession and rejected or narrowed the new recording-related instruction.