Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 10/18/2000

Commonwealth v. O'Brien

Citations

432 Mass. 578
736 N.E.2d 841
2000 Mass. LEXIS 697

How courts have described this case

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

explaining that, under Massachusetts law, hearsay evidence “may be admitted, in the judge’s discretion, to show that a third party might have committed the crime”
affirming exclusion of evidence murder victim feared brother-in-law, even though murder victim’s brother-in-law appeared at scene of murder and crossed crime scene tape
evidence of hostility and fear between victim and alleged third-party culprit not admissible because it lacked sufficient connecting links
\ Bowden simply holds that a judge may not remove the issue from the jury's consideration\
issue of vol-untariness of defendant’s statements to police not preserved where neither defendant’s motion nor arguments at suppression hearing raised it apart from separate Miranda issue
murder victim’s statements to friend about her fear of third party were hearsay and would be “confusing” to jury as “no more than an opinion of [his] involvement”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Spina

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Cited by

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

Cites

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

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