Justia Massachusetts Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant, who was under fourteen-years-old at the time of the alleged offense, was subsequently indicted when defendant was twenty-three-years-old on six charges of rape of a child with force and two charges of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of fourteen. At issue was whether a person who committed an offense at an age under 14, but who was not apprehended until after he or she had passed the age of 18, could be prosecuted. The court held that the Superior Court had jurisdiction to try the person for that offense under G.L.c. 119, section 72A, after indictment, provided that a judge in the Juvenile Court had determined that there was probable cause to believe that the person committed the offense charged and that the interests of the public required that the person be tried for the offenses instead of being discharged. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Commonwealth v. Porges" on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty by a jury of murder in the first degree of Elizabeth Lochtefeld based on the theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. Defendant appealed from his convictions and the denial of his amended motion for a new trial. The court held that flaws in the jury selection process required the reversal of his conviction. The court also noted that on remand, the Commonwealth should exercise care to avoid using defendant's exercise of his Miranda rights against him by suggesting that his invocations of or deliberations on these rights demonstrated his criminal responsibility. The court further noted that, at retrial, the judge should consider the application of Commonwealth v. Berry to the case in light of the particular evidence introduced and instruct the jury accordingly. Therefore, defendant's convictions were reversed, the verdicts set aside, and the case remanded for a new trial. View "Commonwealth v. Toolan" on Justia Law

Defendant was arrested following the recovery of a weapon in the glove box of a motor vehicle after it was searched by police. Defendant subsequently sought sanctions from the Commonwealth's violation of discovery orders aimed at preserving firearm evidence and securing the presence of defendant's expert at ballistics testing of the weapon. The court held that because the record was not sufficiently developed either as to the likely exculpatory nature of the unobserved first test firing or the level of culpability that might warrant the shifting of the burden to the Commonwealth, and thus provided inadequate support for the judge's findings, the order for sanctions was vacated and the case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The court also held that the judge could consider affidavits submitted by the parties or conduct an evidentiary hearing if requested to do so. View "Commonwealth v. Sanford" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree in the death of his former landlady on theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. On his direct appeal, defendant asserted that an error in the jury instructions and improperly admitted findings from the autopsy victim created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice and required reversal. The court agreed and held that the jury instructions regarding the interaction of the voluntary consumption of drugs and mental illness were flawed and incomplete and created a substantial likelihood of miscarriage of justice. Therefore, the court reversed defendant's conviction and remanded for a new trial on that basis. View "Commonwealth v. DiPadova" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on the theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. On appeal, defendant contended that the judge erred in denying his motion for a required finding of not guilty as to murder in the first degree because the evidence was insufficient. Defendant also urged the court to exercise its authority under G.L.c. 278, section 33E, to reduce the verdict to murder in the second degree. The court held that the evidence was sufficient as a matter of law to support defendant's conviction. After review of the record, the court also held that there was no basis to exercise its authority under G.L.c. 278, section 33E, to reduce his murder conviction to a lesser degree of guilt or to order a new trial. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "Commonwealth v. Whitaker" on Justia Law

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

This case arose when Robert Morrison, Jr. pleaded guilty to, among other things, four counts of assault and battery on a public employee (the arresting police officer) and the officer consequently brought a civil suit against Morrison for his injuries. Morrison and Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Company (Metropolitan) subsequently applied for direct appellate review on the issue of whether Metropolitan had a duty to defend and indemnify Morrisson in the civil suit. The court held that an exclusion in a liability policy for "intentional and criminal acts" applied where the insured intended to commit the conduct that caused injury and where the conduct was criminal. The court also held that a guilty plea did not negate an insurer's duty to defend, even where the duty to defend would be negated by a criminal conviction after trial, because a guilty plea was not given preclusive effect and was simply evidence that the insured's acts were intentional and criminal. The court further held that one of the consequences of such a breach of its duty to an insured by failing to provide a defense was that, in determining whether the insurer owed a duty to indemnify the insured for the default judgment, the insurer was bound by the factual allegations in the complaint as to liability. The court finally held that, because the judge based her conclusion that Metropolitan had no duty to indemnify in large part on Morrison's guilty pleas and because the judge determined that Metropolitan had no duty to indemnify without first determining whether it owed a duty to defend at the time of the default judgment, the court vacated the declaratory judgment and set aside the allowance of Metropolitan's motion for summary judgment as well as the denial of Morrison's motion for partial summary judgment. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Metropolitan Property and Casualty Ins. Co. v. Morrison, Jr." 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