Justia Massachusetts Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of armed robbery, possession of a firearm without a license, as a subsequent offender, and as an armed career criminal, and various other firearm offenses. Defendant raised several issues on appeal. The court held that the judge did not erroneously instruct the jury on the elements of joint venture; a witness's out-of-court statement was made during the court of an ongoing emergency and was therefore, nontestimonial; the statement was also admissible under the spontaneous utterance exception to the hearsay rule; any impeachment value of the inconsistent statement at issue would have been diminished by the testimony of the police officers and the undisputed evidence, thereby corroborating the witness's spontaneous utterance; the exclusion of cumulative evidence did not constitute prejudicial error; and nothing in the prosecutor's closing statement created a substantial risk of miscarriage of justice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions. View "Commonwealth v. Smith" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was a level three sex offender with Asperger's disorder currently residing in a rest home. At issue was whether G.L.c. 178K(2)(e), which prohibited level three sex offenders to move to a rest home or other regulated long-term care facility, was unconstitutional as applied to plaintiff. The court held that the statute infringed on plaintiff's protected liberty and property interests and violated his right to due process; because the statute failed to provide for an individualized determination that the public safety benefits of requiring him to leave the rest home outweighed the risks to plaintiff of such a removal, the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him. View "John Doe vs. Police Commissioner of Boston & others" on Justia Law

This case arose when defendant, a sex offender, was notified by the Sex Offender Registry Board (Board) on July 3, 2008, that he had been recommended for reclassification as a level three sex offender where defendant had been classified as a level two sex offender since 2004. At issue was whether the board had the authority to promulgate a regulation declaring that a sex offender waived the right to a classification hearing by failing to appear at that hearing without good cause. The court held that because the Legislature specified only that the classification hearing was waived where the sex offender did not timely request a hearing, the board lacked the authority to declare the hearing waived where a sex offender requested a hearing and the sex offender's attorney was present at that hearing. View "John Doe, Sex Offender Registry Board No. 941 vs. Sex Offender Registry Board" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on the theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty. At issue was whether defendant's motion for new trial was properly granted where defendant challenged the instruction on extreme atrocity or cruelty and the instruction on reasonable provocation as it related to both murder and manslaughter. The court held that it was error to conclude that the instruction on extreme atrocity or cruelty created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice and that the court did not adequately consider the issue of erroneous instruction on plenary review. The court also held that defendant was not entitled to the instruction on provocation and voluntary manslaughter where the evidence of "cooling off" was objective and sufficient to remove provocation as a mitigating factor on the question of malice. Therefore, the court held that the judge abused her discretion in granting defendant a new trial and the order was vacated. View "Commonwealth v. Smith" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of felony-murder in the first degree based on the predicate felony of attempted armed robbery, and related crimes. At issue was whether the jury should have been instructed that an alternative underlying felony for the felony-murder charge was armed home invasion committed with a firearm, a crime that at the relevant time did not carry a life sentence and therefore could have served as a predicate felony-murder in the second degree. The court held that, where the felony later advanced by defendant as the predicate for an instruction on felony-murder in the second degree was not itself the subject of a separate indictment, no error occurred if the trial judge did not charge the jury on it even though there could be sufficient evidence supporting such a charge, at least where, as here, no party requested such an instruction or even brought the issue to the judge's attention at trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of defendant's motion for a new trial. The court also held that defendant's argument that his separate conviction of armed home invasion merged with his felony-murder conviction must be vacated because it was not properly before the court. View "Commonwealth v. Stokes" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on a theory of felony-murder, armed home invasion, arson, and two charges of violation of an abuse prevention order. Defendant appealed both from his convictions and from the denial of his motion for a new trial. The court held that the absence of an instruction on felony-murder in the second degree with arson as the predicate felony required a reversal of defendant's conviction of felony-murder in the first degree. Accordingly, the court reversed defendant's conviction of that crime, set aside the verdict, and remanded the case for further proceedings. On remand, at the Commonwealth's option, a verdict of guilty of felony-murder in the second degree may be entered in lieu of a new trial on the murder indictment. The court affirmed defendant's other convictions. View "Commonwealth v. Bell" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of assault and battery of his girlfriend (victim). On appeal, defendant contended that the admission into evidence of a tape of the 911 telephone call the victim made violated his right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment. The court held that the victim's 911 call was an excited utterance and was not testimonial because the court could infer from the victim's statements during the call that the victim had just been assaulted, that the victim was still in the same apartment building as the assailant, and that the victim was in danger until the police came or defendant fled. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Commonwealth v. Beatrice" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on the theory of felony-murder with armed assault with the intent to rob as the predicate felony. Defendant was also convicted of armed assault in a dwelling, unlawful possession of a firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition. Defendant claimed error regarding the denial of his motion to suppress; claimed that the trial judge erred in admitting evidence of the defendant's prior bad acts and in limiting defendant's use of third-party culprit evidence; claimed that trial counsel should have requested a jury instruction concerning the effects of marijuana intoxication on defendant's ability to form the specific intent for murder with deliberate premeditation and the underlying felony for felony-murder; and requested that, pursuant to G.L.c. 278, section 33E, the court reduce the verdict on the murder charge or order a new trial. The court found no reversible error and therefore, affirmed the judgments of conviction and discerned to basis to exercise its authority under G.L.c. 278, section 33E. View "Commonwealth v. Morgan" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of distributing cocaine, second offense, in violation of G.L.c. 94C, section 32A(d), and sentenced to a five-year mandatory term of imprisonment. At issue was whether appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue of the admissibility of the drug certificate in her direct appeal and for further failing to seek a stay of the appeal while Commonwealth v. Melendez-Diaz was pending in the Supreme Court. The court held that the rule announced in Melendez-Diaz was a new rule not applicable to convictions, such as defendant's, that had become final prior to its issuance. Consequently, there was no error in the admission of the drug certificate at defendant's trial based on the law in effect at the time. Because the court also held that defendant's attempt to obtain relief under the rubric of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel failed, the court affirmed the denial of her motion for a new trial. View "Commonwealth v. Boria" on Justia Law

In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court concluded that a certificate of chemical analysis, sworn to by a state laboratory analyst and reporting the weight and chemical makeup of a seized substance, came within the class of testimonial statements subject to the protections of the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment. Consequently, the certificate was inadmissible as evidence in a criminal trial in the absence of testimony from the analyst who performed the underlying forensic analysis. At issue was whether the rule announced in Melendez-Diaz applied retroactively to cases on collateral review. The court held that the rule announced in Melendez-Diaz, as it related to the applicability of the confrontation clause to certificates of chemical analysis (drug certificates), was a "new" rule within the meaning of Teague v. Lane, and as such, was not available to defendant in this appeal from the denial of his motion for a new trial. View "Commonwealth v. Melendez-Diaz" on Justia Law