Massachusetts v. Westcott

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that, in a murder prosecution where the victim was killed with a knife, the admission of evidence of the defendant's prior use of knives violated his due process interests
• holding that the state’s admission of prior acts evidence violated the petitioner’s federal constitutional rights
• noting that evidence is relevant if it “tend[s] to make any fact relevant to the[ ] elements[of the crime] more or less probable”
• holding in the context of a murder prosecution that \[t]he character rule is based on . . . a `fundamental conception of justice' and the `community's sense of fair play and decency' \
• noting that character evidence is the type of evidence from which no 14 permissible inference may be drawn
• noting that evidence is relevant if it “tend[s] to make any fact relevant to the[ ] elements [of the crime] more or less probable”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).