Commonwealth v. Elangwe (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-038-14)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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‑2190 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. MANFRED ELANGWE. No. 10‑P‑2190. Middlesex. September 11, 2013. ‑ April 15, 2014. Present: Kantrowitz, Sikora, & Hines, JJ. Rape. Assault and Battery. Practice, Criminal, New trial, Discovery, Assistance of counsel, Hearsay, Conduct of prosecutor. Constitutional Law, Assistance of counsel. Due Process of Law, Assistance of counsel. Evidence, Exculpatory, Hearsay, Relevancy and materiality, Cross‑examination, Credibility of witness, Impeachment of credibility. Witness, Credibility, Cross‑examination. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on May 26, 2005. The cases were tried before Sandra L. Hamlin, J., and a motion for a new trial, filed on May 18, 2011, was considered by her. Jane Larmon White, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for the defendant. Jessica Langsam, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. HINES, J. After a jury trial in the Superior Court, the defendant, Manfred Elangwe, was convicted of rape (Mary Smith),[1] assault and battery as a lesser included offense (Susan Jones), and accosting and annoying a person of the opposite sex (Jones). This is a consolidated appeal from the convictions and the denial of the defendant’s motion for new trial. We affirm. Background. The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. The victims lived at the Hildebrand Family Self-Help Center, a shelter in Cambridge, during the summer of 2004. The shelter had one “house manager” on site at any one time. The defendant was a house manager during the victims’ stay. The defendant’s direct supervisor was Lorraine D’Eon, the director of program operations for the shelter. a. Smith. One day in July of 2004, after finishing her chores, Smith sat down on a sofa in the common area near where the defendant was sitting. The defendant was the only other person in the common area. The defendant suddenly approached Smith and forced her to have sexual intercourse with him on the sofa. After the defendant finished, he told Smith that no one would believe her because she was homeless. Smith discarded her clothes and did not photograph or document her injuries. Smith then went to the residence of her children’s father, Dan Emde. While there, she took a bath and used two douches that she purchased on the way. Although Smith sounded upset talking to Emde, she did not tell him about the […]