[DOWNLOAD] "Com. v. Napolitano" by Appeals Court of Massachusetts # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: Com. v. Napolitano
Author : Appeals Court of Massachusetts
Release Date : January 30, 1997
Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
Pages : * pages
Size : 58 KB

Description

Evidence, Hearsay, Spontaneous utterance, Unavailable witness. Constitutional Law, Confrontation of witnesses. LAURENCE, J. The defendant, Mark Napolitano, was convicted by a jury of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on Jennifer Botto. He contends that his trial was tainted by two unpreserved errors that created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of Justice: (1) the trial Judge allowed the Commonwealth to introduce damaging testimony regarding Botto's out-of-court statements against him under the ""excited utterance"" (or ""spontaneous exclamation"") exception to the hearsay rule, even though the statements did not properly fall within that exception; and (2) those out-of-court statements should not have been admitted, even if they were within the exception, because the Commonwealth failed to establish the unavailability of Botto, who was physically available (and in fact testified for the defendant) but was not made a prosecution witness. That failure, the defendant claims, violated his right of confrontation under article 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, which guarantees a defendant the right ""to meet the witnesses against him face to face."" We see no merit in the defendant's arguments and affirm.