Justia Massachusetts Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant was acquitted on eighteen counts of statutory rape but convicted on seven counts of the lesser-included offense of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of fourteen. On appeal, Defendant argued, among other things, that the trial judge’s instruction on reasonable doubt was constitutionally inadequate, and even if it was constitutionally sound, the charge on reasonable doubt established more than 150 years ago in Commonwealth v. Webster should be required in all criminal trials. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the convictions, holding (1) pursuant to the Court’s general superintendence power, a modernized version of the Webster charge must be given in criminal trials on a prospective basis; and (2) Defendant was not entitled to a special retroactive application of this new rule, and the judge’s instruction on reasonable doubt in this case passed constitutional muster. View "Commonwealth v. Russell" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on the theories of deliberate premeditation and felony-murder, among other crimes. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the convictions and declined to grant relief under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E, holding (1) the trial judge did not abuse her discretion by restricting Defendant’s attendance at a jury view; (2) the trial judge did not err by admitting a witness’s testimony that the witness saw Defendant with a gun more than one year before the shooting in question occurred; (3) the police’s failure to examine the money seized from Defendant’s residence for fingerprints of DNA before depositing the money into a bank account did not warrant dismissal of the charges against him; and (4) the trial judge’s exclusion of video and testimony of Defendant’s expert showing that surveillance footage of the shooting distorted the height of the perpetrator did not infringe on Defendant’s right to present a defense. View "Commonwealth v. Corliss" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted on charges of murder in the first degree under theories of premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. Defendant moved to suppress the eyewitness identifications of him as the shooter and the identifications of his jacket, which had been found in the path of flight and identified by two witnesses as the one worn by the shooter. The motions were denied. Defendant was subsequently convicted of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the conviction, holding (1) the admission of the jacket identifications did not violate due process or Mass. R. Crim. P. 14 where the Commonwealth did not arrange a “jacket lineup”; (2) no reversible error arose from Defendant’s other claims; and (3) although evidence of questionable conduct by some of the investigating police officers was brought out during the course of the proceedings, there was an insufficient basis for the Court to exercise its authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E to order a new trial or reduce the degree of guilt. View "Commonwealth v. Bresilla" on Justia Law

The Commonwealth moved for judicial approval of a grand jury subpoena compelling a law firm representing John Doe, who was the target of a grand jury investigation, to produce a telephone Doe transferred to the law firm in connection with its provision of legal services to him. The Commonwealth asserted that the telephone was transferred from Doe to the law firm to obtain legal advice and that it contained evidence, particularly in its record of text messages, of the crime under investigation by the grand jury. A single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court approved the issuance of the subpoena on the basis that the Commonwealth had, through an ex parte proceeding, established probable cause sufficient to justify a search under the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Judicial Court reversed, holding that the attorney-client privilege protected Doe against compelled production of the telephone by the law firm and that the privilege may not be set aside based on a showing of probable cause. View "In re a Grand Jury Investigation" on Justia Law

Twenty-three years after a young woman was found dead in a vacant lot, DNA was extracted from samples taken from the victim’s body and clothing. A match was found with Defendant’s DNA. After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict; (2) the trial judge’s exclusion of evidence proffered by Defendant as third-party culprit evidence and Bowden evidence was not in error; (3) comments made by the prosecutor during closing argument were misguided, but there was no substantial likelihood that a miscarriage of justice occurred; and (4) the trial judge did not err in his instructions to the reconstituted jury after an original deliberating juror had been discharged. View "Commonwealth v. Scott" on Justia Law

The two defendants in this case were both convicted of criminal harassment for posting information about the victims online along with false statements about items that the victims allegedly had for sale or were giving away solely for the purpose of encouraging unwitting third parties to repeatedly contact and harass the victims, and for sending hostile communications to the victims. On appeal, Defendants challenged the constitutionality of the criminal harassment statute, both facial and as applied to them. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) the criminal harassment statute is neither unconstitutionally overbroad nor vague; (2) Defendants’ as-applied constitutional challenge failed because the conduct in question was not protected speech but, rather, a hybrid of conduct and speech integral to the commission of a crime; and (3) Defendants’ remaining claims similarly failed. View "Commonwealth v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted on seventeen indictments, including three counts of aggravated burglary. Two of those counts arose from the burglary of a dwelling in Agawam involving two assaults therein, and the third count arose from a break into a home in Springfield and an assault on one of its residents. Defendant filed a motion for postconviction relief seeking to correct illegal sentences, arguing (1) the two Agawan indictments were duplicative, and (2) an amendment to the Springfield indictment as to the person assaulted rendered that conviction unconstitutional. The Supreme Judicial Court reversed in part and affirmed in part, holding (1) Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 266, 14 permits only one burglary conviction per dwelling, and therefore, Defendant’s conviction on the duplicative indictment must be vacated; and (2) the name of the person assaulted was not an essential element to the crime charged in this case, and therefore, the conviction on the amended Springfield indictment was constitutional. View "Commonwealth v. Bolden" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree and other crimes. The trial judge denied Defendant’s motion for a new trial. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) Defendant was not denied the effective assistance of counsel because of his attorney’s failure to object to the in-court identification of Defendant by an eyewitness and because of his attorney’s failure to object to the enforcement of a sequestration order during jury selection; (2) the trial judge did not err in denying Defendant’s motion for a new trial on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct; (3) the trial judge did not err in admitting cellular telephone records where the records were obtained by court order rather than with a search warrant; and (4) Defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated by his conviction of possession of an unlicensed firearm where Commonwealth didn’t prove that Defendant lacked a license to carry firearms. View "Commonwealth v. Collins" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on the theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendant’s convictions, holding (1) the trial court did not commit prejudicial evidentiary errors undermining Defendant’s right to present his defenses and depriving him of due process and fundamental fairness under the United States Constitution and Massachusetts Declaration of Rights; (2) an isolated misstatement by defense counsel during closing arguments did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice; and (3) the judge improperly responded to a question posed by the jury, but the response did not prejudice Defendant. View "Commonwealth v. Cassidy" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the conviction. Appellant later filed a motion for a new trial, alleging that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to impeach a witness as to one of his statements and that he was deprived of counsel when his trial counsel’s law partner stood in during jury deliberations. The motion was denied without a hearing. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) trial counsel did not render ineffective assistance in failing to impeach a witness as to one of his statements or in allowing her partner to stand in for her during jury deliberations; and (2) any error in permitting substitute counsel to stand in for trial counsel was not structural warranting a new trial absent a showing of prejudice. View "Commonwealth v. Valentin" on Justia Law