Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

In the early morning hours of January 12, 1991, six men were shot execution-style in the basement of an illegal gambling parlor in the Chinatown section of Boston. After the shootings, arrest warrants were issued for the defendants and in 1999, one defendant, Siny Van Tran, was arrested in China. Another defendant, Nam The Tham, was arrested the following year in China. Both defendants were extradited from Hong Kong to the United States and subsequently convicted of five charges of murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. On appeal, defendants asserted several claims of error related to the denial of motions for severance, the admissibility of airline records, improper prosecutorial vouching, and the admission of inculpatory statements. After the court reviewed the briefs, the entire record, all the issues, and the arguments, the court saw no reason to reduce the degree of guilt on the murder convictions or to order a new trial. Accordingly, the judgments were affirmed.

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.

This case stemmed from the enactment of St. 2010, c. 258, on August 7, 2010, which prohibited institutional lenders and certain financial institutions who owned foreclosed properties from evicting residential tenants without just cause. At issue was whether the act required dismissal of a no-cause summary process case that was already pending when the act went into effect, or whether the application of the act to such a case was impermissibly retroactive. The court held that the provision of the act that prevented eviction without just cause was properly applied to protect all residential tenants on foreclosed properties who, on or after August 7, 2010, had yet to vacate or be removed from the premises by an eviction, even where the owner purchased the property before the act's effective date, and initiated a summary process action before that date. Because the tenant, in this case, was still residing on the property on August 7, 2010, and the owner was seeking to evict him without just cause, the court held that the Housing Court judge properly applied the act to dismiss the pending claim for possession.

This case involved a challenge to the constitutionality of the new Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines. Plaintiffs, parents who claim that they will be subject to higher child support orders as a consequence of the new guidelines, sought declaratory and injunctive relief to enjoin the mandatory use of the new guidelines. Plaintiffs subsequently appealed the dismissal of their complaint where the Superior Court judge determined that the complaint failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted. The court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint and held that the declaratory judgment statute, G.L.c. 231A, prohibited any action for declaratory relief against the judicial department and plaintiffs would have an opportunity to challenge the new guidelines as applied in their individual cases.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Defendant was convicted of assault and battery of the victim when he punched him at a bowling alley. At issue was whether the trial judge erred in instructing the jury on self-defense where he instructed the jury solely on whether the force that was used was greater than necessary in all circumstances. The court affirmed defendant's conviction and held that the error in the jury instruction on self-defense did not create a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice where defendant was not prejudiced by the incomplete instruction and where there was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that defendant used unreasonable force in the circumstances.