Justia Massachusetts Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in May, 2012
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Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of her complaint against Safety, which alleged that Safety improperly denied coverage under her homeowner's insurance policy for damage to her house. The court concluded that plaintiff satisfied her initial burden of proving that her claimed loss fell within the coverage of her homeowner's insurance policy. Safety then satisfied its burden of showing that the exclusion for damage caused directly or indirectly by surface water was applicable to plaintiff's claim. In light of the anticoncurrent cause provision in the exclusions section of plaintiff's policy, where the excluded peril was a direct or indirect cause of the damage to plaintiff's home, Safety was not obligated to provide insurance coverage "regardless of any other cause or event contributing concurrently or in any sequence to the loss." Accordingly, the court affirmed the grant of Safety's motion for summary judgment. View "Boazova v. Safety Ins. Co." on Justia Law

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Defendant was charged in separate complaints with distribution of marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Defendant moved to suppress statements to police following his arrest on the drug charges and when the motion to suppress was scheduled to be heard, defendant orally moved to exclude the recorded statement at issue because of the Commonwealth's failure to provide an English-language transcript. The Commonwealth contended that its only obligation in discovery was to provide defendant with a Spanish-language audio recording of the interrogation. The court held that where the Commonwealth contended in its case-in-chief to offer at trial statements made by a defendant in a foreign language in a tape-recorded interview, it was within the judge's discretion to require the Commonwealth to provide defense counsel in advance of trial with an English-language transcript for the interview, and to exclude the statements where the Commonwealth declined to do so. Therefore, the court concluded that the judge did not abuse her discretion in declaring that the Commonwealth could not admit in evidence defendant's statements of the interrogation while refusing to provide defense counsel with a translated transcript of the Spanish-language recording. The court vacated the judge's order of exclusion so the Commonwealth could be given the opportunity to decide whether to promptly prepare and provide a translated transcript and remanded for further proceedings. View "Commonwealth v. Portillo" on Justia Law

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The Commonwealth appealed from an order entered in the Superior Court suppressing drugs seized from between defendant's buttocks pursuant to a search incident to his arrest following a lawful automobile stop. During the search of defendant, defendant's buttocks were exposed to public view. Because the court concluded that the search of defendant that took place when the police retrieved drugs from between defendant's buttocks constituted an unreasonable strip search on account of the location of the search and the manner in which it was conducted, the court affirmed the suppression order. View "Commonwealth v. Morales" on Justia Law

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The juvenile was charged with delinquency by reason of armed robbery. He was identified as the robber by means of a photograph that the police had obtained from his public high school and claimed to have included in a photographic array shown to the alleged victim. The juvenile moved to suppress the identification. Without evidence of how the student identification cards and photographs were created and how and by whom they were used within and outside of the school, the court was not in a position to review the judge's conclusion that the juvenile had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the photograph and the legal consequences that followed from such a conclusion. Consequently, the court vacated the judge's allowance of the motion to suppress and remanded for further proceedings. View "Commonwealth v. Zachary Z., a juvenile" on Justia Law

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Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation. Defendant was also convicted of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and extortion. On appeal, defendant argued that the judge erred both in rejecting his exercise of a peremptory challenge of a member of the venire during jury empanelment and in improperly providing a limiting instruction as to the use of prior inconsistent statements elicited on cross-examination of one of the Commonwealth's key witnesses. The court concluded that there was no merit in defendant's first claim of error. As to the second claim of error, even if it were assumed, without deciding, that the limiting instruction should not have been given, this did not give rise to a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice. Thus, the court affirmed the convictions and declined to exercise its power under G.L.c. 278, section 33E. View "Commonwealth v. Prunty" on Justia Law

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Plaintiff, a private college, brought suit against a town and a local zoning authority (defendants), seeking, among other things, a declaration that its proposed development of residential and education facilities for older adults (Regis East) qualified for protection under the Dover Amendment, G.L.c. 40A, section 3, second par. The Dover Amendment exempted from certain local zoning laws or structures that were to be used by nonprofit educational institutions for "educational purposes." Because the court could not conclude that plaintiff "has no reasonable expectation" of demonstrating that Regis East would primarily operate in furtherance of educational purposes, the court vacated and remanded. View "Regis College v. Town of Weston & others." on Justia Law

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Defendant was ordered to testify at a murder trial on two separate occasions, May 10 and 12 of 2010, and on both occasions, the judge held him in contempt of court. When the trial was over, defendant was returned to court and, finding that his refusal to testify merited punishment in excess of three months, the judge referred the matter for prosecution pursuant to rule 44. Defendant subsequently was indicted for nonsummary criminal contempt. Defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground of double jeopardy, claiming that at the May 12 proceeding he already had been adjudged in summary contempt, thus barring his subsequent prosecution for nonsummary contempt. The court held that, because defendant was not convicted of summary contempt on May 12, jeopardy, if it applied, never terminated. The case was remanded to county court for entry of judgment denying defendant's petition. View "Vizcaino v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

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Defendant was indicted on multiple felony counts arising out of a series of arson fires. On appeal, defendant contended that incriminatory statements he made in the course of nearly ten hours of police interrogation were obtained in violation of his right to counsel and that certain tactics employed by his interrogators were sufficiently misleading or coercive so as to render his statements involuntary. The court held that the troopers' misrepresentations, in combination with the troopers' attempts to persuade defendant not to obtain the advice of counsel on whether to exercise his right to remain silent, constituted an affirmative interference with defendant's understanding of his fundamental constitutional rights. On the record before the court, the Commonwealth had not shown beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's statements were nevertheless freely and voluntarily made. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings. View "Commonwealth v. Baye" on Justia Law

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Defendant was found guilty from a complaint for criminal harassment issued against him in the district court, alleging that he wilfully and maliciously engaged in a knowing pattern of conduct or series of acts in violation of G.L.c. 265, section 43A(a). On appellate review, the court agreed with defendant that the Commonwealth's evidence was insufficient to establish each element of the crime of criminal harassment where, among other things, there was no evidence that defendant's attention or interest was particularly focused on the complainant and that he intended that she be aware of his attention, or that he otherwise harbored any wrongful or unlawful motive. View "Commonwealth v. McDonald" on Justia Law

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This case stemmed from the registrar of motor vehicles' suspension of plaintiff's driver's license for three years on his refusal to take a breathalyzer test. At issue was the interpretation of the word "convicted" in G.L.c. 90, section 24(1)(f)(1), a statute providing for the suspension of a driver's license for refusal to submit to a breathalyzer test on arrest for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The court concluded that as used in the statute, "convicted" referenced only dispositions of criminal charges that included a determination of guilt. Accordingly, the registrar was not authorized to suspend plaintiff's driver's license for more than 180 days on account of his refusal to take the test because plaintiff had not previously been convicted of a violation of G.L.c. 90, section 24. View "Souza v. Registrar of Motor Vehicles & another" on Justia Law