Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 4/13/2001

Commonwealth v. Almeida

Citations

433 Mass. 717
746 N.E.2d 139
2001 Mass. LEXIS 187

How courts have described this case

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

“Admitting hearsay evidence of statements made while a person is sleeping, so-called ‘sleep talk,’ would run counter to one of the central principles governing the admissibility of evidence, namely, that the proffered material is reliable.”
testimony of sleep talk inadmissible; circumstances surrounding declaration lacked requisite degree of trustworthiness, and prejudicial nature of declaration outweighed minimum probative value
admission of out-of-court statements made while complainant was sleeping would run counter to central principle that hearsay evidence be reliable
“That [declarant] was having some form of dream about the defendant, the contents of which are entirely unknown, sheds no light on whether she had actually been sexually assaulted by him. Furthermore, the prejudicial nature of such evidence far outweighs its minimal probative value.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Ireland

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