Violent pimp has gun charges overturned because police did not record his statements

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today tossed a Hyde Park man's gun-related convictions because police did not record his claim that his roommate actually owned the gun they found in his apartment - even though he told police he didn't care if they recorded his statements.

However, Darryl Tavares won't be going anywhere soon - he's currently serving a 25-year federal prison term for pimping out teenagers, including one on whom he used a potato peeler to carve out part of her face to show people who owned her.

In the gun case, which arose out of the prostitution investigation by Attleboro police, Boston police found two guns, only one of which could actually fire, and ammunition. According to the court ruling, Tavares admitted owning the non-functioning gun - for which he could not be charged with anything under state law, since it couldn't fire - but said the working gun belonged to his roommate. The officers who interrogated him testified they did not record his statements after he declined to have a recording device turned on.

As his trial ended, Tavares's lawyers demanded the judge instruct the jury to consider the fact that no recording of the statements were made; the judge refused because of the testimony from the officers that Tavares declined a recording.

Big mistake, the appeals court said:

The Supreme Judicial Court has held that "a defendant whose interrogation has not been reliably preserved by means of a complete electronic recording should be entitled, on request, to a cautionary instruction concerning the use of such evidence." ... The trial judge should instruct the jury that "the State's highest court has expressed a preference that such interrogations be recorded whenever practicable, and ... because of the absence of any recording of the interrogation in the case before them, they should weigh evidence of the defendant's alleged statement with great caution and care." ... Where an audio recording was not made, "the instruction is mandatory."

• Complete ruling, Commonwealth vs. Darryl Tavares