Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

The subject of the present appeal was an order issued by a judge in the Probate and Family Court, authorizing the involuntary administration of antipsychotic medication (substituted judgment treatment order) to a mentally ill women under guardianship. The order was issued on February 2009 and has since expired, therefore, the appeal was moot. However, the court addressed the issue concerning notice requirements applicable to motions seeking substituted judgment treatment orders because that issue was likely to recur. The court held that a party filing a motion for entry of a substituted judgment treatment order must provide all other parties with at least seven days notice through service of a copy of the motion on them, and must give the same notice, through service, of every affidavit that will be filed in support of the motion.

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on the theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty when she ran over her husband several times and was convicted of an assault and battery on him by means of a dangerous weapon. Defendant raised issues on appeal related to evidence of her mental impairment, the ineffective assistance of counsel, error in the judge's limiting instruction, and the reduction of her sentence. The court held that the jury was not properly instructed that they could consider evidence of mental impairment on the question of extreme atrocity or cruelty, but that the conviction of murder in the second degree could stand unless the Commonwealth elected to move for a new trial. Therefore, the court declined to decide the remaining issues and remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant was convicted of operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent or greater and sentenced to a one-year term of probation and ninety-day loss of license. The principal issue in this case was whether an annual certification, and accompanying diagnostic records, attesting to the proper functioning of the breathalyzer machine used to test defendant's blood alcohol content were admissible in a criminal prosecution for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The court held that the certification and supporting records were created as part of a regulatory program providing standardized mechanisms for the routine maintenance of all breathalyzer machines throughout the Commonwealth and therefore, they were admissible evidence as business records pursuant to G.L.c. 233, 78, and were not testimonial statements within the scope of protection afforded by the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Accordingly, their admission in this case was not error and the conviction affirmed.