Commonwealth v. Duquette

How courts have described this case

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

• requiring colloquy to assess understanding and voluntariness when defendant admits to sufficient facts rather than pleading guilty at final stage of District Court proceeding
• describing practice of “continuing without a finding” in District Court before it was codified in G. L. c. 278, § 18, in 1992; see note 8, supra
• defendant who admits to sufficient facts in District Court entitled to trial de nova in jury-of-six session
• defendant’s failure to ensure that record of District Court proceedings at which defendant admitted to sufficient facts was preserved does not shift constitutional burden on voluntariness of what was esssentially a guilty plea
• an oral waiver by a defendant of his right to a jury trial will not be valid in the face of the method for waiver prescribed by statute
• if admission to facts sufficient to support finding of guilt “is to be given the effect of a guilty plea, it must be supported by the same demonstrations of voluntariness and intelligence that are required of any other guilty plea”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).