Court Opinion

ID: 9722365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:27:10.278629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:34.579344
License: Public Domain

Liacos, C.J.
(concurring). I agree with the result reached by the court. I write separately to emphasize the unique and extraordinary facts of the case which the opinion of the court, as a cost of elliptical precision, understates.1 There were grave allegations by the defendant of corrupt activities among certain Boston police officers which, under most other circumstances, would require a new trial for a defendant who was unaware of the circumstances until after his trial. In this case, however, the defendant’s own knowledge of, and involvement in, illegal protection and bribery schemes precluded any of the events from being considered as “new” evi*234dence. Perhaps, in the light of allegations of corruption, Officer Clark’s recanted testimony might have had greater significance to a jury able to hear the whole story. But the defendant’s own participation in the corruption has foreclosed the shadowy background of this case from being brought forth. The defendant’s motions for new trial and dismissal of the indictments against him fell victim to his own machinations.

“Yossarian saw [Catch-22] clearly in all its spinning reasonableness. There was an elliptical precision about its perfect pairs of parts that was graceful and shocking, like good modern art, and at times Yossarian wasn’t quite sure that he saw it all, just the way he was never quite sure about good modern art . . . .” J. Heller, Catch-22 at 47 (Dell ed. 1978).