Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 7/23/1985

Commonwealth v. Allen

Citations

480 N.E.2d 630
395 Mass. 448
1985 Mass. LEXIS 1640

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

holding that jury must determine voluntariness of statements to both private citizens and police
noting that hospital nurse who obtained information from defendant was not acting “on behalf of the police”
judge’s finding warranted that statements of defendant recovering from brain surgery were product of rational intellect
statements defendant made to a nurse were properly admitted after hearing at which there was evidence that defendant was oriented and responding appropriately to questions asked
statement voluntary even though given while defendant recovered from gunshot wound implicating areas of brain controlling “appropriate” behavior
Massiah prohibits deliberate elicitation of information by “law enforcement officials,” but does not affect gathering of information by private citizens “unconnected with law enforcement authorities”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Hennessey, Wilkins, Liacos, Nolan, O'Connor

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63 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

32 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

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