Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 2/21/2003

Commonwealth v. LaCava

Citations

438 Mass. 708
783 N.E.2d 812
2003 Mass. LEXIS 172

How courts have described this case

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

element of malice “may be negated by showing a lack of specific intent due to mental impairment”
\serious impediment\ to husband's potential insanity defense to 4 murder of wife included \anger over their impending divorce\
not unreasonable to choose not to raise defense where defendant's conduct was apparently rational and measured
where counsel's expert opined defendant did not have mental disease or defect, not unreasonable for counsel to consider that opinion as \serious impediment\ to insanity defense
“[defendant’s] informed and voluntary agreement to proceed in accordance with trial counsel’s recommendation further undermines [although does not preclude] his ability now to claim that counsel was ineffective for pursuing that strategy at trial”
tactical decisions deserve special deference where defendant agreed with tactic at trial

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Cordy

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Cited by

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

Cites

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

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