Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 4/28/1975

Commonwealth v. Shaffer

Citations

326 N.E.2d 880
367 Mass. 508
1975 Mass. LEXIS 866

How courts have described this case

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

stating that there is no right of self-defense until the defendant has availed himself of all proper means to avoid physical combat and there is no recognized exception to this general rule in Massachusetts
stating that “assault is an attempt or threat to do bodily harm”
declining to adopt majority rule that one assaulted in own home need not retreat before resorting to use of deadly force
jury must receive complete instructions from judge, including explanation of proper factors to be considered in determining issue
instruction that defendant had right to be in her home when she shot victim not misleading because made clear that location of assault was factor for jury to consider
“definition of assault is an attempt or threat to do bodily harm”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Tauro, Reardon, Quirico, Braucher, Hennessey, Kaplan, Wilkins

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

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

Cites

11 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

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