Commonwealth v. Shruhan (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-044-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 14-P-382 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. TIMOTHY SHRUHAN. No. 14-P-382. Suffolk. October 1, 2015. – April 19, 2016. Present: Cypher, Milkey, & Massing, JJ. Assault and Battery by Means of a Dangerous Weapon. Evidence, Hearsay, Admitted without objection, Prior misconduct, Argument by prosecutor, Identification. Practice, Criminal, Hearsay, Failure to object, Argument by prosecutor, Instructions to jury. Identification. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on April 15, 2011. The case was tried before Thomas A. Connors, J. Charles W. Rankin (Kerry A. Haberlin with him) for the defendant. Paul B. Linn, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. CYPHER, J. The defendant, Timothy Shruhan, appeals from his conviction by a Superior Court jury on August 24, 2012, of aggravated assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, G. L. c. 265, § 15A(c). Now, with new counsel, he seeks a new trial, alleging that cumulative errors in the admission of inflammatory evidence[1] and that the prosecutor’s appeals to the jury’s emotions created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice. We affirm. Background. On the afternoon of September 11, 2006, Timothy Cahill stopped at The Quencher Tavern (Quencher), a neighborhood bar near a community center where he worked in the South Boston section of Boston, met his father briefly, and ordered a cheeseburger to go. While he was walking on I Street back to work, a man he did not know, later identified as the defendant, rushed out of the driver’s seat of a nearby parked automobile, yelling, “Hey, Joey.” The defendant, mistaking Cahill for a South Boston man (Joe Pano), apparently aimed to settle a score over a stolen item. He stabbed Cahill in the abdomen causing life threatening injuries. Both “kind of stumbled” and the victim, who was immediately aware that he had been stabbed, put one hand on his wound and ran to the Quencher. More than once, he exclaimed, “I’m not Joey.” The defendant gave chase but soon quit and ran back to the car, still occupied by his companion, Robert Glavin. The defendant drove off but not before a passerby, Jessica Bianco, had memorized the car’s license plate number. Upon reaching her home on East Sixth Street, Bianco telephoned the police and passed on her observations. She had noticed the Infiniti emblem on the rear of the […]