Source: https://www.massachusettscriminallawyer-blog.com/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 04:18:47+00:00

Document:
In Commonwealth v. Hernandez, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the denial of the defendant’s motion for a new trial on his indictment for first degree murder. In its ruling, the SJC ruled that the Commonwealth’s nondisclosure of exculpatory evidence prior to trial was error, but that it was not prejudicial.
The Appeals Court reversed the denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress items seized pursuant to a warrantless search of his motor vehicle in Commonwealth v. Darosa.
In affirming the defendant’s conviction of voluntary manslaughter in Commonwealth v. Franceschi, the Appeals Court ruled that although the judge erred in admitting an accident reconstruction expert’s testimony about a shoe scuff that was not shown to be scientifically reliable, the error was not prejudicial.
The background was as follows. The victim was killed as she was walking across a street and was struck by the defendant’s motor vehicle. The day before the fatal collision, the victim and a friend visited Rosario’s Mini Market where they conversed with the owner (Orlando). “[T]he defendant entered Rosario’s and began criticizing Orlando, whom she was dating at the time, for talking to the victim and her friend…. [T]he defendant gave [the victim and her friend] dirty looks and referred to them as “nobodies and whores.” The next day, the victim again planned to visit Rosario’s to talk to Orlando. As she was crossing the street near the store, the defendant arrived in her vehicle and struck the victim, fatally injuring her. The Commonwealth’s case included the testimony of an accident reconstruction expert (Laviolette) that a “particular mark left in the middle of the road … was a scuff mark from the victim’s shoe (also known as a shoe scuff), and opined that … it represented the approximate point of impact between the victim and the defendant’s vehicle.
In an atypical decision, the SJC declared that the case of Commonwealth v. Salazar “presents one of the rare situations” in which the Court should reduce the defendant’s first degree murder conviction to a second degree murder conviction, pursuant to G.L. c.278, §33E, even though the evidence was sufficient to support the first degree guilty verdict, because such a result would be more consonant with justice.
In Commonwealth v. Cruz, the single justice affirmed the Commonwealth‘s petition pursuant to G.L. c.211, §3, ruling that the discovery order from which the Commonwealth sought relief was erroneous because it ordered the prosecution to disclose information over which it did not have control.
On January 19, the SJC issued its decision in Commonwealth v. Plasse, ruling that a court may, in certain circumstances, incarcerate a defendant for the sole purpose of addiction treatment.
In Commonwealth v. Santos, a case of first impression, the Appeals Court reversed the dismissal of the complaint charging the defendant with reckless endangerment of a child under G.L. c.265, §13L, which was based on the defendant’s inadequate supervision of her daughter.
The application for a complaint alleged as follows. At 10:50 a.m. on a day in May, the police received “a report of a [three year old] female child found wandering alone in the playground” of an elementary school. The officer who was dispatched to the scene (Wood) “recalled that [several weeks earlier], school employees had reported finding the same child alone in the playground. Another officer had responded to that call, located the child’s mother (the defendant), and reunited her with the child.” When Wood arrived at the school, he “was directed to the nurse’s office where he saw the child. She was wearing a T-shirt and diaper and had bare feet, but was in good health with no cuts or abrasions…. Meanwhile, based on information from the [earlier] incident,” another officer (Donahue) was dispatched to an apartment located two-tenths of a mile from the school. “Though he rang the doorbell and pounded on the door repeatedly, he received no response.

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