Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 3/3/1983

Commonwealth v. Westmoreland

Citations

446 N.E.2d 663
388 Mass. 269
1983 Mass. LEXIS 1290

How courts have described this case

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

abandonment of McHoul and Gould defenses at final argument deprived defendant of effective assistance of counsel
ineffective assistance of counsel found where counsel presented evidence supporting three defenses but abandoned two of them in closing, arguing only weakest one
the abandonment of insanity defense at closing argument likely deprived defendant of otherwise available, substantial ground of defense
statement, “I’m not making any statement knowing that I am being held for this alleged murder of said person,” not invocation when immediately followed with proclamations of innocence without provocation
in summation, counsel failed to discuss evidence in support of possibly viable defense theory
items recovered from crime scene generally admissible but must still be relevant

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Hennessey, Abrams, Nolan, Lynch, O'Connor

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

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

Cites

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

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