Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendants were two passengers and a driver in a vehicle pulled over by a police officer for a traffic offense. The defendant passengers left the scene despite the officer's order for them to return to the automobile. The defendant driver was arrested for driving without a valid license. Subsequently two police officers searched the vehicle and found a firearm and drugs. Defendants were charged with various drug and firearm offenses. Defendants moved to suppress the evidence seized from the vehicle. The superior court allowed the motions, concluding that the warrantless search of the vehicle was not justified under any exception to the warrant requirement. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) because the firearm was not in plain view, the search could not be justified as a search incident to arrest; and (2) because the defendant passengers did not abandon the contents of the vehicle when they left the scene, the search of the vehicle constituted an unlawful warrantless search. View "Commonwealth v. Perkins" on Justia Law

Defendant was a sex offender subject to the requirements of the Sex offender Registration and Community Notification Act. Following his release in prison, Defendant pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 6, 178H(a). The district judge imposed a fine and imposed community parole supervision for life (CPSL). Defendant moved to vacate the imposition of CPSL and to withdraw his pleas. The judge denied Defendant's motions. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) chapter 6, section 178H(a) authorizes the imposition of CPSL where the sentence is a fine; (2) the amendment of the complaint to add Defendant's prior convictions serving as predicate offenses for the imposition of CPSL was proper; (3) Defendant received effective assistance of counsel in connection with the plea process; (4) the district court judge correctly found Defendant was criminally liable for failing to register; and (5) the district court judge did not abuse her discretion in denying Defendant's motion for a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence. View "Commonwealth v. Domino" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. At trial, Defendant contended that he stabbed the victim to death in self-defense. The evidence indicated that the victim was the first to provoke a nondeadly altercation with Defendant, but a dispute arose as to whether Defendant or the victim was the first to grab the knife that escalated the conflict into a deadly dispute. Defendant appealed, arguing that the trial judge erred by excluding evidence that the victim had participated in a violent assault of a third person less than two years after the incident resulting in the victim's death. The Supreme Court vacated the conviction, holding (1) a judge may admit "adjutant evidence" where there is a dispute as to who initiated a threat or use of deadly force; (2) the judge here erred in concluding that adjutant evidence was admissible only where there was a dispute as to who threatened or struck the first blow; and (3) this mistake resulted in prejudice to Defendant. Remanded for a new trial. View "Commonwealth v. Chambers" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of posing or exhibiting a child in a state of sexual conduct. The case was tried under the "live performance" prong of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, 29A(b). The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding (1) the trial judge did not err in denying Defendant's motion for a required finding of not guilty because the state sufficiently proved the victim's conduct satisfied the statutory definition of a "live performance"; and (2) expert testimony was not required to aid the jury in understanding how the alleged "live performance" occurred. View "Commonwealth v. Bundy" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on a theory of felony-murder, armed burglary, and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's convictions of felony-murder and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and vacated Defendant's armed burglary conviction, holding (1) the trial judge did not err in instructing the jury; (2) trial counsel was not ineffective; (3) the prosecutor's closing argument did not create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice; but (4) Defendant's conviction for armed burglary was duplicative of his conviction for felony-murder. View "Commonwealth v. Alcequiecz" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of indecent assault and battery in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, 13H and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 119, 63. The Supreme Court (1) reversed the indecent assault and battery conviction, holding that the trial judge erred by limiting Defendant's ability to impeach the victim's credibility through eliciting from a police statement the victim's earlier inconsistent statements, and the error was prejudicial; and (2) reversed Defendant's conviction of contributing to the delinquency of a child that rested on Defendant's delivery of alcohol to his daughter, holding that the Legislature did not intend chapter 138, section 34 to prohibit a parent's delivery of alcohol to his minor children. View "Commonwealth v. Parent" on Justia Law

Jamie Melendez pleaded guilty to four counts of statutory rape of a child. As the result of Melendez's crimes, the victim gave birth to Melendez's biological child. The superior court ordered Melendez to acknowledge paternity, to financially support the child as conditions of his probation, and to abide by any orders of the probate and family court. The victim moved the superior court to revise the conditions of Melendez's probation, contending that his conditions of probation unlawfully bound her to an ongoing relationship with Melendez. The superior court denied the victim's motion, and a single justice of the Supreme Court denied the victim's petition for relief under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3. The Supreme Court affirmed, where Melendez's sentence did not require the victim to be involved with Melendez in any way. View "H.T. v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and related firearm and ammunition offenses. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the joinder of the indictment charging assault and battery with the indictments charging murder in the first degree was proper and not unfairly prejudicial; (2) the trial judge did not abuse his discretion by asking members of the venire if they would be able fairly to evaluate the evidence notwithstanding the absence of physical evidence such as DNA or fingerprints linking Defendant to the crimes; (3) under the circumstances, the prosecutor did not improperly use the judge's voir dire questions to argue in closing that the jury should ignore the absence of scientific evidence; and (4) the trial court correctly denied Defendant's motion to suppress a box of ammunition seized from the kitchen of the apartment where he lived. View "Commonwealth v. Gray" on Justia Law

John Rousseau and Michael Dreslinski (Defendants) were each convicted of four counts of arson, breaking and entering in the nighttime with intent to commit a felony, malicious destruction of property, and malicious injury to a railroad. On appeal, both Defendants argued that a warrant secured by the State police for the purpose of attaching a global positioning system (GPS) device to Dreslinski's vehicle, and then tracking its location over a thirty-one-day period, was not supported by probable cause and was overly broad. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendants' convictions but remanded Rousseau's case for modification of his probationary terms, holding (1) both Defendants had standing to challenge the GPS warrant; (2) probable cause supported the warrant; (3) the evidence was sufficient to prove Rousseau participated in the charged offenses; (4) the conditions of Rousseau's probation violated his constitutional right to access the courts by effectively denying him access to research and legal materials otherwise available to prison inmates; and (5) the trial judge did not commit prejudicial error in instructing the jury. View "Commonwealth v. Rousseau" on Justia Law

Defendant turned himself in after killing his wife and stepson. Defendant made a long statement to police in his native Portuguese. An officer fluent in both Portuguese and English contemporaneously translated the statement. Following the trial court's denial of Defendant's motion to suppress the statement, the statement was introduced into evidence at Defendant's trial. A jury found Defendant guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree based on the theory of deliberate premeditation. The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding (1) the trial court properly denied Defendant's motion to suppress, as (i) Defendant understood all of his Miranda rights before he made his statement to police, and (ii) Defendant both voluntarily waived his Miranda rights and voluntarily made his statement to police; (2) certain out-of-court statements were properly admitted under the state of mind exception to the rule against hearsay; (3) any misuse by the prosecutor of the out-of-court statements did not give rise to a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice; and (4) the judge did not err in denying Defendant's request for a voluntary manslaughter instruction. View "Commonwealth v. Bins" on Justia Law