Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 4/14/1986

Commonwealth v. Ford

Citations

490 N.E.2d 1166
397 Mass. 298
1986 Mass. LEXIS 1265

How courts have described this case

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

holding that it was error to admit extraneous material, which included violations of probation, with records of a defendant’s prior convictions to impeach him
reversing convictions under this standard where the “decisive,” if not sole, issue at trial was witness credibility
error to admit certified records of prior convictions, including docket entries which showed defaults, warrants issued, arrests on warrants, and violation of probation
\We will not substitute our view of a witness's credibility for that of the jury\
“[bjecause . . . there was no evidence of the defendant’s involvement apart from the disputed confession, we cannot say ‘with fair assurance’ that the improperly admitted evidence did not have a significant impact on the jury’s decision”
“[credibility is for the jury, not for appellate courts”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Hennessey, Liacos, Abrams, Lynch, O'Connor

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Cited by

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

Cites

12 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

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