Commonwealth v. Bateman: No Prejudice from Undisclosed Recording or Audio “Anomalies”

The Supreme Judicial Court’s recent decision in Commonwealth v. Dennis M. Bateman reads, at one level, like a case about audio recordings. At another, it is about something far older and more human: memory, omission, and the perennial hope that somewhere—buried in a file, preserved in a cloud, lurking in a waveform—there lies the thread that will unravel a conviction.

The defendant had already been tried and convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree: the killing of Brandy Waryasz and her viable unborn child during an armed robbery. The evidence at trial was formidable. His distinctive black van was seen at the scene. His DNA was the major profile on the ligature used to strangle the victim. He made incriminating statements to police—before certain details of the crime had been made public—and later confessed to a fellow detainee. He was broke before the murder and flush with cash after.

The jury convicted. The convictions were affirmed. A first motion for a new trial was denied.

Then came the second act.

Bateman’s second motion for a new trial rested on three principal claims: that the Commonwealth failed to disclose a portion of a recorded witness interview; that newly discovered expert analysis revealed suspicious “anomalies” in the defendant’s recorded police interview; and that trial counsel had been ineffective for failing to call witnesses who did not recall seeing the defendant’s van at the scene.

On paper, it sounds promising. In practice, the Court was unmoved.

I. The Missing Segment

The first claim concerned a police interview of a man who had spent time with the defendant on the day of the murders. The interview had three parts. Two were disclosed before trial. The first—nearly an hour—was not. Years later, it was discovered that the segment had been taped over and survived only in cloud storage.

For the defense, this was no small matter. The undisclosed recording, they argued, would have alerted trial counsel that the witness might serve as an alibi. It would have supported a Bowden defense—that the investigation had been unduly focused on Bateman from the outset. It might have revealed heavy-handed interrogation tactics useful for impeachment.

But the Court, with the unhurried patience of a judge who has heard such arguments before, asked the central question: where is the prejudice?

The undisclosed audio, it turned out, largely echoed the written statement that had been provided to the defense. The witness placed Bateman in Greenfield “in the afternoon” when “it was light out.” He could not say precisely when. His memory shifted. He professed uncertainty about numerous details.

In short, the recording did not transform him into the sort of alibi witness who arrives at 6:32 p.m., glances at a clock, and declares the defendant elsewhere beyond all doubt. It offered the defense what we sometimes call “room”—but not rescue.

And so the Court concluded that timely disclosure would not have altered the jury’s deliberations. The evidence of guilt, it observed more than once, was overwhelming.

That word carries weight. It is the judicial equivalent of a raised eyebrow and a sip of claret: one hears, behind it, a quiet skepticism.

II. The Digital Ghosts

The second claim had a distinctly modern flavor. Two defense experts analyzed the digital recordings of Bateman’s police interview and identified irregularities: truncated words, waveform changes, file discrepancies. They testified that these anomalies were “consistent with” editing.

It is a phrase that, in the right courtroom, can feel electric. Consistent with. Suggestive. Possibly manipulated.

But the Commonwealth’s expert disagreed. The anomalies, he explained, were equally consistent with ordinary background noise, room acoustics, duplication artifacts. The recording had been made on a handheld device, transferred to a computer, copied to discs. Digital life leaves fingerprints.

Most significantly, the defense experts could not conclude that editing had occurred. They could not identify missing exculpatory statements. They acknowledged alternative explanations.

The law on newly discovered evidence is demanding. It is not enough that evidence be new, or even interesting. It must be material. It must cast real doubt on the justice of the conviction. It must be the sort of thing that probably would have been a real factor in the jury’s deliberations.

The Court found that these anomalies did not meet that standard. The tools used to detect them had been available years earlier. The issue could have been raised sooner. And even if considered new, the evidence did not shake the foundation of the verdict.

One senses here the Court’s reluctance to equate technological ambiguity with injustice. A waveform may flicker; that does not mean the truth has been redacted.

III. The Van That Might Not Have Been There

Finally, the defendant argued that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call two witnesses who made a U-turn at the gas station around the time of the murders. One did not recall seeing a van. The other admitted he did not look.

This, too, has a certain Rumpolean charm. One imagines the defense rising with theatrical gravity: “Members of the jury, no van! Not a trace! Only a red pickup truck and the gentle turning of a steering wheel.”

But trials are rarely built on such fragile reeds. Five other witnesses placed a van matching the defendant’s distinctive vehicle at the scene at or near the critical time. The proposed testimony would not have directly contradicted them; it would have amounted to “I do not remember seeing one.”

The standard in a first-degree murder case is whether counsel’s performance created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice. The Court found no such likelihood. Even had the jury heard that someone did not recall seeing the van, the mountain of other evidence would have remained.

IV. Finality, Without Fury

The Court does not belittle the defense claims. It examines them carefully, methodically, and places them back where it found them.

This is the sober work of appellate review. It recognizes that criminal trials are human enterprises. Recordings may be mishandled. Discovery may be imperfect. Experts may disagree. Counsel may make strategic choices that, in hindsight, could be second-guessed.

But a conviction is not undone because a case could have been tried differently. It is undone when confidence in the verdict is shaken.

Here, the Court was not shaken.

In Bateman, the recordings had their static. The files bore their digital scars. A witness might not have seen a van.

But the verdict, in the Court’s view, rested on firmer ground than that. And so it stands.