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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 10/16/1990

Commonwealth v. Ortiz

Citations

  • 560 N.E.2d 698
  • 408 Mass. 463
  • 1990 Mass. LEXIS 431

How courts have described this case

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

  • holding that, for purposes of felony-murder, the homicide and predicate felony “need only to have occurred as part of one continuous transaction”; and that connection is sufficient “as long as [the felony] and the homicide[] took place at substantially the same time and place”
  • absent evidence of' overt act, evidence insufficient to support conviction of attempted assault and battery by means of dangerous weapon
  • “It would be enough if the homicide[] occurred as part of the defendant’s effort to escape responsibility for the underlying felony”
  • the carrying of the loaded handgun as a joint venturer “was clearly independent of the homicide[] in the sense that it was distinct from the act[] of violence which resulted in the [victim’s] death[]”
  • jury could have found that where defendant illegally carried loaded firearm in vehicle, crime was committed with conscious disregard for risk to human life where defendant and his brother were looking for individual involved in feud
  • where judge did not instruct jury on joint venture as to particular charge and jury convicted on that charge without reference to joint venture theory, it was highly unlikely that had jury been instructed, verdict would have been different

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Liacos, Abrams, Nolan, O'Connor, Greaney

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

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

Cites

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

Other cases with this name

Sourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).

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