Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 1/12/1999

Commonwealth v. Simpson

Citations

428 Mass. 646
704 N.E.2d 1131
1999 Mass. LEXIS 6

How courts have described this case

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

addressing the issue of the defendant’s competency to stand trial and noting that ”[t]he [trial] judge, unlike appellate judges, had the advantage of seeing and hearing the defendant.”
defendant’s “implausible, rambling, considerably incriminatory” opening statement and subsequent trial conduct raised a legitimate competency question
unlike appellate judges, trial judge has advantage of seeing and hearing the defendant
“If the defendant was incompetent at the time of his trial, it was a miscarriage of justice to convict him, even if there was overwhelming evidence that he had committed the crimes charged”
appellate court may consider issue apparent on record

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Welkins

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

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

Cites

19 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

Other cases with this name

Sourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).

This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.