Commonwealth v. Brangan (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-124-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-12037 COMMONWEALTH vs. JAHMAL BRANGAN. Hampden. April 7, 2016. – August 12, 2016. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ.[1] Practice, Criminal, Appeal by Commonwealth, Mistrial. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on February 25, 2014. The case was tried before Mark D. Mason, J., and a mistrial was ordered by him. The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for direct appellate review. Amal Bala, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Merritt Schnipper for the defendant. CORDY, J. On March 13, 2015, a jury convicted the defendant of armed robbery while masked, in violation of G. L. c. 265, § 17. During closing argument, the defendant objected to a series of the prosecutor’s statements, and at its conclusion moved for a mistrial, claiming that those statements constituted prejudicial error. The trial judge, who had given curative instructions in response to the defendant’s objections, took the defendant’s motion under advisement, gave the jury final instructions, and placed the case in their hands for deliberations. After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the judge solicited briefs from both parties on the prejudicial error issue and held a nonevidentiary hearing. He then granted the defendant’s motion for a mistrial,[2] ordering that the defendant’s indictment would stand for retrial. The Commonwealth sought an appeal of the judge’s decision pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 28E, suggesting that the judge had granted a motion for a new trial, as opposed to a mistrial. The case was entered in the Appeals Court, and we allowed the defendant’s motion for direct appellate review. On appeal, the Commonwealth argues that, although an order granting a mistrial is generally not appealable, we have jurisdiction to hear its appeal pursuant to G. L. c. 278, § 28E, because the defendant’s motion, granted after the verdict, was akin to a motion for relief from a guilty verdict under the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure.[3] See Mass. R. Crim. P. 25 (c), as amended, 420 Mass. 1502 (1995) (right of appeal where motion for required finding of not guilty granted after verdict of guilty); Mass. R. Crim. P. 30 (c) (8), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001) (right of appeal where motion for new trial granted). Because we conclude that the timing […]