COMMONWEALTH v. ALEXANDER RENTAS (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

After a jury trial in the Superior Court, the defendant, Alexander Rentas, was convicted of home invasion and armed robbery.¹ On appeal, he argues two errors, each pertaining to evidence of his identity as the perpetrator of the crimes. First, he argues that the showup at which the witness identified him was unnecessarily suggestive and his motion to suppress it should have been allowed. Second, he argues that there was insufficient evidence at trial of his identity as the perpetrator. We affirm.

Background. We recite the uncontroverted facts, reserving certain details for later discussion. On April 27, 2018, at approximately 10:00 A.M., three men engaged in an armed home invasion and robbery in Lynn. Two of the men entered the victim's ground-floor apartment through a window; robbed her of personal belongings including jewelry, cash, and a green laptop computer; and fled, leaving through the window and into a white car that was waiting outside. One of these men held what appeared to be a gun during the robbery and was described as being the shorter of the two. The third man served as the driver and waited outside in the white car. Once the men left the victim's apartment, she called 911. Several police officers (investigating officers) were dispatched to the scene.

Meanwhile, two other officers on routine patrol (patrolling officers) heard about the home invasion over their radio, but they did not respond and continued their patrol. At approximately 11:30 A.M., they saw a white car drive past them with a passenger, Brian Redondo, whom they recognized from his prior history with the police. The officers checked the car's license plate and learned that it did not have a current inspection sticker and that the registered owner, Mark West, had been recently stopped and warned about driving without a Massachusetts license. With this information, the officers decided to watch the car. They saw it pull over, and three men got out and walked away: West, Redondo, and a third person, who the police identified as the defendant based on their previous experience with him.

The officers ran the defendant's information and learned that he had outstanding warrants for motor vehicle infractions. A few minutes later, three men returned to the white car; it is undisputed that the defendant was one of them.

After returning to the car, Redondo removed some belongings and walked away, West returned to the driver's seat, and the defendant sat in the back seat. Once the car drove away, the patrolling officers followed it briefly, then pulled it over. They ordered the defendant out and arrested him, cuffing his hands behind his back. One of the officers searched the defendant incident to arrest and found several pieces of jewelry in a pocket of the defendant's grey hooded sweatshirt. The defendant claimed the jewelry belonged to someone he knew.

From outside the car, the patrolling officers could see a number of personal belongings in the backseat, of which both West and the defendant disclaimed ownership. The officers realized that the car might be connected to the home invasion that they had heard about earlier that morning, so they broadcast information about the stop over their radio. Sergeant Robert Avery, who had been one of the investigating officers, responded to the location of the car. Looking inside it, Avery saw a green laptop and what looked like a gun. He confirmed with another investigating officer that the stolen laptop was green, then removed it from the car and placed it on the car's trunk.

The police decided to conduct a showup identification and so they drove the victim to the defendant's location in a cruiser. The defendant was still in handcuffs, standing near the white car, with Avery standing beside him in plain clothes and another officer nearby in uniform. As the cruiser approached the area, the victim identified the defendant by his clothes, with sixty percent certainty, as the shorter man who had the gun during the robbery. While there, looking out from the police cruiser, the victim also identified as hers the green laptop and several of the personal belongings in the car's back seat. She further identified the white car as being the same color and style as the one waiting outside of her apartment during the robbery.

The defendant was then brought to the police station. During booking, the police found more jewelry in the defendant's sock, as well as $820 in cash on his person. The victim identified the jewelry in the defendant's sweatshirt pocket and in his sock as hers.

1. Motion to suppress. The defendant moved to suppress the victim's identification of him. After an evidentiary hearing, a judge denied the motion, ruling that there was good reason for the showup and that there were no special elements of unfairness requiring suppression.² The defendant does not dispute that there was good reason, but he argues that the identification was so unduly suggestive as to infringe on his due process rights. We see no error by the motion judge.

Although showups are generally disfavored due to their inherently suggestive nature, “a one-on-one pretrial identification raises no due process concerns unless it is determined to be unnecessarily suggestive” (citations omitted). Commonwealth v. Martin, 447 Mass. 274, 279 (2006). This inquiry “does not depend on the availability or reasonableness of pursuing an alternative identification procedure” (citations omitted). Commonwealth v. Dew, 478 Mass. 304, 308 (2017). It depends instead on whether, in the totality of the circumstances, the police “so needlessly add[ed] to the suggestiveness inherent in such an identification that it is ‘conducive to irreparable mistaken identification.’ ” Commonwealth v. Figueroa, 468 Mass. 204, 217 (2014), quoting Commonwealth v. Phillips, 452 Mass. 617, 628 (2008).

We recite additional facts found by the motion judge pertinent to the suppression issue, none of which is challenged on appeal. Commonwealth v. Isaiah I., 448 Mass. 334, 337 (2007), S.C., 450 Mass. 818 (2008). We review independently whether the defendant met his burden “to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the showup was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification as to deny [the defendant] due process of law” (quotations and citation omitted). Dew, 478 Mass. at 306-307. See Commonwealth v. Jimenez, 438 Mass. 213, 218 (2002).

Before the showup procedure, one of the officers gave the victim instructions consistent with those given in Commonwealth v. Meas, 467 Mass. 434, 436-443, cert. denied, 574 U.S. 858 (2014). When she arrived at the scene, the defendant was handcuffed, standing between two officers -- one in plain clothes and one in uniform -- about ten to fifteen feet away from the white car. As she neared the scene, the victim first identified the defendant, then identified her belongings and the car.³

First, that the defendant was visibly handcuffed did not render the showup unnecessarily suggestive. See Figueroa, 468 Mass. at 218 (defendant stood near police van, flanked by plain clothes officers, with hands cuffed behind his back); Phillips, 452 Mass. at 628 (suspect detained in police wagon, handcuffed, and flanked by two officers). After all, “[a] witness ordinarily expects to be asked to make an identification of someone who either fits the description of a suspect or is suspected to have been involved in the reported crime.” Commonwealth v. Meas, 467 Mass. 434, 443 (2014).

Next, regarding the presence of police and proximity to the victim's stolen property, the present case bears significant similarities to Commonwealth v. Travis, 100 Mass. App. Ct. 607 (2022). There, the showup was conducted in view of the victims’ stolen car and at least three uniformed officers. We determined that the police did not so needlessly add to the suggestiveness of the showup as to require suppression where, among other things, the presence of the car could not “be attributed to any police wrongdoing,” the victims “identified the defendant as the assailant by his appearance,” and there was “nothing to suggest that either victim identified the defendant due to the presence of the car or other suggestive factors.” Id. at 615-616.

Likewise, here, the presence of the white car and the victim's stolen property was not attributable to any police wrongdoing. We recognize that the police arguably contributed to the suggestiveness of the showup when Avery moved the stolen laptop out of the back seat and onto the trunk of the car. RA49. However, there is no indication that this change was prompted by “a desire on the part of the police to ‘stack the deck’ against the defendant” (citations omitted). Dew, 478 Mass. at 307. Moreover, as in Travis, the victim “identified the defendant as the assailant by his appearance,” and the motion judge found nothing to “suggest that [the] victim identified the defendant due to the presence of the car or other suggestive factors.” Travis, 100 Mass. App. Ct. at 616. Moving the laptop did not “so needlessly add[ ] to the suggestiveness” of the showup as to risk “irreparable mistaken identification.” Figueroa, 468 Mass. at 217.

Finally, although the defendant argues that the police should have moved him away from the car and stolen property prior to the showup, the record does not show that such an option was feasible.⁴ There is also no factual basis from which to conclude that the police conducted the identification in view of the car because they desired to make him appear to be the culprit. RA49-50. See Travis, 100 Mass. App. Ct. at 615. Absent such a showing by the defendant, the possibility that the police could have conducted a less suggestive identification does not render an identification unnecessarily suggestive. See, e.g., Dew, 478 Mass. at 308; Martin, 447 Mass. at 280.

While there were suggestive elements to the showup here, as in any showup, we do not think they constituted the “special elements of unfairness” necessary to render the identification inadmissible. Commonwealth v. Coy, 10 Mass. App. Ct. 367, 372 (1980). See Commonwealth v. Crayton, 470 Mass. 228, 235 (2014) (suggestiveness alone insufficient to render showup identification inadmissible). We also note that the instructions provided to the witness tended to mitigate the suggestiveness. These instructions expressly discouraged the witness from assuming she was viewing the perpetrator: “The person you saw may or may not be among the people you are about to view. It is just as important to clear innocent persons from suspicion as it is to identify the guilty.” Ultimately, there is nothing to indicate that any of the elements of suggestiveness, either individually or collectively, were needlessly added by the police to stack the deck against the defendant. Furthermore, the defendant did not meet his burden of proving that any suggestive elements affected the victim's identification. The motion to suppress was properly denied.

2. Sufficiency of the evidence. At the close of the Commonwealth's evidence, the defendant moved for a required finding of not guilty, asserting that the Commonwealth presented insufficient evidence of the defendant's involvement in the home invasion and robbery. Specifically, he argued that the victim's equivocal identification of him based on his clothing, and her failure to mention his distinctive tattoos, left a reasonable doubt about his identity. The trial judge denied the motion and helpfully summarized the additional evidence -- including circumstantial evidence and video surveillance footage from outside the victim's apartment -- from which the jury could reasonably conclude that the defendant was the perpetrator. The defendant now argues that the evidence against him is equally consistent with innocence, such that it is speculative to conclude he was the culprit. Again, we see no error.

“In reviewing the denial of a required finding of not guilty, we review the evidence introduced up to the time the Commonwealth rested its case to determine whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, was sufficient for a reasonable jury to infer the existence of each essential element of the crime charged, beyond a reasonable doubt.” Commonwealth v. Rivera, 460 Mass. 139, 141 (2011). See Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 677 (1979). Identification is an essential element in every criminal trial. Commonwealth v. Koney, 421 Mass. 295, 302 (1995). “Circumstantial evidence is competent to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Commonwealth v. White, 452 Mass. 133, 135 (2008), and “[f]act finders are not required to divorce themselves of common sense, but rather should apply to facts which they find proven such reasonable inferences as are justified in the light of their experience as to the natural inclinations of human beings” (quotations and citation omitted, Commonwealth v. Russell, 46 Mass. App. Ct. 307, 309 (1999).

The defendant focuses primarily on the victim's identification of him. To be sure, that identification lacked certainty; she testified that she had been sixty percent confident at the time but had relied on recognizing the man's clothes and his general skin tone, and she stated the man's stripe of strawberry blonde hair “completely threw [her] off” because the perpetrator had a hood up the entire time he was in her apartment. The victim was not asked to identify the defendant in the courtroom. The Commonwealth's case, however, did not rest entirely upon the identification at the showup. The jury could compare the perpetrator's appearance in video surveillance footage from outside the victim's apartment-showing a man with facial hair and a segment of lighter, orange colored hair on the top right side of his head, wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt with a large white logo on the front -- with the defendant's appearance in his booking photos. The jury could reasonably conclude that the defendant's appearance in those photos was consistent with that of the man in the video and therefore that the defendant was the person in the video.

There was also ample circumstantial evidence from which the jury could conclude that the defendant committed the home invasion and robbery. Shortly after the crime, the defendant was found in a car matching the one seen at the crime, sitting next to the stolen property. He had more stolen property on his person, both in his sweatshirt pocket and hidden in his sock. He also had cash on his person which, while not the exact amount stolen, was in denominations consistent with what was stolen.

Finally, the jury could consider consciousness of guilt evidence, including that the defendant lied to police about who owned the stolen jewelry, claiming first that it belonged to his girlfriend and later to his aunt. See Commonwealth v. Swartz, 343 Mass. 709, 713 (1962) (while not conclusive, consciousness of guilt may combine with other evidence to support guilty finding). Consciousness of guilt evidence “includes making false or inconsistent statements to police.” Commonwealth v. Woods, 466 Mass. 707, 715, cert. denied, 573 U.S. 937 (2014), S.C., 480 Mass. 231, cert. denied, 586 U.S. 1054 (2018). Viewing all of this evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, a reasonable jury could conclude that the defendant was the same person who entered the victim's home and stole her property.

The defendant argues that it is left to speculation when he came to possess the stolen jewelry and when he entered the car. Not so. As we have held previously, “the defendant's mere possession of recently stolen property may be relied upon by the jury as evidence that he had stolen it.” Commonwealth v. Latney, 44 Mass. App. Ct. 423, 425 (1998). The jury here were free to use their common sense in rejecting the defendant's theory that he “merely stumbled upon the jetsam” of some other robbers. See id. They could similarly reject his theory that he merely got in a car with strangers who happened to be robbers only a few minutes before it was pulled over; they could instead conclude that the defendant got in the car immediately after he robbed the victim's apartment. The asserted shortcomings in the Commonwealth's evidence were properly argued to the jury; while the jury would have been entitled to reject the Commonwealth's theory, so too could they rationally reach guilty verdicts.

Finally, that the jury twice reported deadlock on the relevant counts does not establish that there was insufficient evidence of identity. At best, as the defendant concedes, such difficulty in reaching a verdict might indicate that the evidence is not overwhelming, but evidence need not be overwhelming to be sufficient.

Judgments affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   He was also convicted of two counts of assault and battery on a public employee and two counts of assault. His present arguments, however, pertain only to his convictions of home invasion and armed robbery.

2.   There is no dispute about whether the denial of the motion to suppress is properly before us and so we need not address the defendant's arguments on this subject.

3.   Although at the hearing the judge expressed doubt that events occurred in this sequence, he ultimately found that they did, and that finding was not clearly erroneous.

4.   To the contrary, although the judge did not make any findings on this subject, the evidence suggests that, due to the presence of another suspect in the car, it could have been inefficient, at the least, for police to move the defendant while keeping the car, stolen property, and other suspect secure.