Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation, murder in the second degree, armed assault with intent to murder, and unlawful possession of a firearm. On appeal, defendant argued that the evidence was insufficient to convict him of deliberately premeditated murder and of armed assault with intent to murder. Defendant also challenged two jury instructions and claimed improper direct examination and closing argument by the trial prosecutor. The court affirmed defendant's conviction of murder in the first degree and declined to exercise its power to grant relief under G.L.c. 278, section 33E. The court affirmed the conviction of murder in the second degree. Because the court concluded that the omission of a jury instruction regarding defendant's knowledge that a codefendant was armed created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice, the court reversed defendant's conviction of armed assault with intent to murder. Finally, the court affirmed defendant's conviction of unlawful possession of a firearm.

A grand jury returned six indictments charging defendant with rape of a child under the age of sixteen by force. At defendant's first trial, the trial judge entered a required finding of not guilty on one of the indictments. The jury returned guilty verdicts on the remaining indictments. However, almost a year later, the judge allowed defendant's motion for a new trial. The case proceeded to a new trial on the remaining five indictments and defendant was subsequently convicted of all charges. On appeal, defendant argued that he was convicted of crimes for which he was not indicted; error in the admission of first complaint testimony; error by the judge's restriction of cross-examination of one of the victims and refusal to grant a mistrial; and error in the admission of bad act evidence. The court transferred the case on its own motion and subsequently affirmed the convictions.

Defendant was charged with committing an assault and battery on a child under fourteen years of age causing substantial bodily injury and wantonly and recklessly permitting an assault and battery on a child that caused substantial bodily injury. At defense counsel's request and with the Commonwealth's agreement, the judge instructed the jury that they could consider whether defendant recklessly endangered her child. The jury acquitted defendant of the offenses charged in the indictments but found her guilty of the lesser included offense of reckless endangerment. Defendant filed a motion to vacate the conviction, claiming that the crime of reckless endangerment of a child was not a lesser included offense and the jury instruction to the contrary that her counsel had requested should not have been given. The court concluded that, although erroneously charged, the lesser included offense instruction created no substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice. The court also held that the judge did not abuse his discretion by allowing admission of the expert testimony at issue.

Defendant was convicted of 23 out of 32 charges stemming from his participation in a string of robberies. On appeal, defendant argued that he was unduly prejudiced by the joinder of the charged offenses in a single trial, and that inculpatory evidence that was discovered in a search of his bags violated his rights under the U.S. Constitution and the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and therefore should not have been admitted. The court concluded that the charges were joined properly for a single trial, but that the challenged evidence should have been suppressed. Accordingly, the convictions that relied on that evidence must be reversed.

Defendant was charged in separate complaints with distribution of marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Defendant moved to suppress statements to police following his arrest on the drug charges and when the motion to suppress was scheduled to be heard, defendant orally moved to exclude the recorded statement at issue because of the Commonwealth's failure to provide an English-language transcript. The Commonwealth contended that its only obligation in discovery was to provide defendant with a Spanish-language audio recording of the interrogation. The court held that where the Commonwealth contended in its case-in-chief to offer at trial statements made by a defendant in a foreign language in a tape-recorded interview, it was within the judge's discretion to require the Commonwealth to provide defense counsel in advance of trial with an English-language transcript for the interview, and to exclude the statements where the Commonwealth declined to do so. Therefore, the court concluded that the judge did not abuse her discretion in declaring that the Commonwealth could not admit in evidence defendant's statements of the interrogation while refusing to provide defense counsel with a translated transcript of the Spanish-language recording. The court vacated the judge's order of exclusion so the Commonwealth could be given the opportunity to decide whether to promptly prepare and provide a translated transcript and remanded for further proceedings.

The Commonwealth appealed from an order entered in the Superior Court suppressing drugs seized from between defendant's buttocks pursuant to a search incident to his arrest following a lawful automobile stop. During the search of defendant, defendant's buttocks were exposed to public view. Because the court concluded that the search of defendant that took place when the police retrieved drugs from between defendant's buttocks constituted an unreasonable strip search on account of the location of the search and the manner in which it was conducted, the court affirmed the suppression order.

The juvenile was charged with delinquency by reason of armed robbery. He was identified as the robber by means of a photograph that the police had obtained from his public high school and claimed to have included in a photographic array shown to the alleged victim. The juvenile moved to suppress the identification. Without evidence of how the student identification cards and photographs were created and how and by whom they were used within and outside of the school, the court was not in a position to review the judge's conclusion that the juvenile had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the photograph and the legal consequences that followed from such a conclusion. Consequently, the court vacated the judge's allowance of the motion to suppress and remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation. Defendant was also convicted of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and extortion. On appeal, defendant argued that the judge erred both in rejecting his exercise of a peremptory challenge of a member of the venire during jury empanelment and in improperly providing a limiting instruction as to the use of prior inconsistent statements elicited on cross-examination of one of the Commonwealth's key witnesses. The court concluded that there was no merit in defendant's first claim of error. As to the second claim of error, even if it were assumed, without deciding, that the limiting instruction should not have been given, this did not give rise to a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice. Thus, the court affirmed the convictions and declined to exercise its power under G.L.c. 278, section 33E.

Defendant was ordered to testify at a murder trial on two separate occasions, May 10 and 12 of 2010, and on both occasions, the judge held him in contempt of court. When the trial was over, defendant was returned to court and, finding that his refusal to testify merited punishment in excess of three months, the judge referred the matter for prosecution pursuant to rule 44. Defendant subsequently was indicted for nonsummary criminal contempt. Defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground of double jeopardy, claiming that at the May 12 proceeding he already had been adjudged in summary contempt, thus barring his subsequent prosecution for nonsummary contempt. The court held that, because defendant was not convicted of summary contempt on May 12, jeopardy, if it applied, never terminated. The case was remanded to county court for entry of judgment denying defendant's petition.

Defendant was indicted on multiple felony counts arising out of a series of arson fires. On appeal, defendant contended that incriminatory statements he made in the course of nearly ten hours of police interrogation were obtained in violation of his right to counsel and that certain tactics employed by his interrogators were sufficiently misleading or coercive so as to render his statements involuntary. The court held that the troopers' misrepresentations, in combination with the troopers' attempts to persuade defendant not to obtain the advice of counsel on whether to exercise his right to remain silent, constituted an affirmative interference with defendant's understanding of his fundamental constitutional rights. On the record before the court, the Commonwealth had not shown beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's statements were nevertheless freely and voluntarily made. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings.