Commonwealth v. Strickland (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-009-15)

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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   10-P-666                                        Appeals Court   COMMONWEALTH  vs.  JASON STRICKLAND. No. 10-P-666. Hampden.     September 8, 2014. – January 23, 2015.   Present:  Berry, Kafker, & Maldonado, JJ.     Assault and Battery.  Assault and Battery by Means of a Dangerous Weapon.  Evidence, Medical record, Relevancy and materiality, Third-party culprit, Impeachment of credibility, Prior misconduct, Expert opinion.  Minor, Medical treatment.  Witness, Impeachment, Expert.  Practice, Criminal, Assistance of counsel.  Dangerous Weapon.       Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on July 24, 2006.   The cases were tried before Judd J. Carhart, J., and a motion for a new trial was considered by Bertha D. Josephson.     Michael J. Fellows & Myles D. Jacobson for the defendant. Katherine E. McMahon, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.   KAFKER, J.  When eleven year old Haleigh Poutre arrived at the hospital on September 11, 2005, she was unconscious and barely breathing, her pale, emaciated body was covered in bruises and huge burns, and the back of her head was swollen, lacerated, and bleeding.  Her horrible injuries had been inflicted in her own home, where she lived with her mother Holli Strickland[1] and stepfather, the defendant.  After a trial in Superior Court, a jury convicted the defendant of (1) wantonly or recklessly permitting, or wantonly or recklessly permitting another to commit an assault and battery causing, substantial bodily injury to Haleigh on or about September 10, 2005 (head injury); (2) wantonly or recklessly permitting, or wantonly or recklessly permitting another to commit an assault and battery causing, bodily injury to Haleigh on or before September 11, 2005 (multiple injuries of various ages);[2] (3) assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon (bat); (4) assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon (wand or stick or tube); and (5) assault and battery.  The jury acquitted the defendant of one count of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon (shod foot). On appeal from his convictions and from the denial of his new trial motion, the defendant argues that (1) the trial judge improperly excluded medical evidence from Haleigh’s pediatrician and nurse with respect to the second, multiple injury count; (2) the wand that the defendant used to hit Haleigh was not a dangerous weapon; (3) the head injury conviction may have been based on a theory not supported in the […]

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