Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 2/7/1983

Commonwealth v. Kane

Citations

445 N.E.2d 598
388 Mass. 128
1983 Mass. LEXIS 1256

How courts have described this case

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

finding no critical weight in witness refusal to answer what defendant told him because State presented strong circumstantial case, and court instructed jury “to draw no inferences, for or against the defendant”
priest’s refusal to answer questions about what defendant told him might lead jury to infer that defendant had inculpated himself
“[D]eath was caused by very severe blows of a blunt instrument such as a fist, a foot, or a board.”
priest’s refusal to answer questions about what defendant told him might have led jury to infer that defendant had inculpated himself, but no abuse of discretion found
no reversal where prosecutor asked only one question that witness refused to answer, prosecutor did not return to issue in his closing argument, and prosecution did not \consciously [seek] to build its case out of the inferences arising from [the witness's] silence\

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Hennessey, Liacos, Abrams, Nolan

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18 cases in this archive cite this case.

Cites

11 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

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