Commonwealth v. Lenk (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-152-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-11957 COMMONWEALTH vs. DAISY OBI. Middlesex. January 8, 2016. – September 21, 2016. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ.[1] Constitutional Law, Sentence. Practice, Criminal, Sentence, Probation, Challenge to jurors, Jury and jurors, Conduct of judge, Disqualification of judge. Jury and Jurors. Judge. Complaint received and sworn to in the Somerville Division of the District Court Department on August 28, 2012. The case was tried before Paul M. Yee, Jr., J., and a motion for resentencing was heard by him. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court. Kimberly M. Peterson for the defendant. Mary F.P. O’Neill, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. LENK, J. The defendant, a landlord, was convicted of assault and battery after pushing a tenant who is Muslim down a flight of stairs. The defendant was sentenced to a term of incarceration of two years in a house of correction, six months to serve, with the balance suspended for a period of two years. The judge imposed two special conditions of probation during the period of suspension: that the defendant provide a written disclosure to prospective tenants that she had been convicted of assaulting a tenant and had had several harassment prevention orders issued against her; and that the defendant attend an introductory class on Islam. A single justice of the Appeals Court stayed execution of the defendant’s sentence pending this appeal. The defendant contends that imposition of this length of a period of incarceration, and the special conditions of probation, would violate her constitutional rights under both the Federal and State Constitutions. She also asserts error in a number of the judge’s rulings at trial. We conclude that the judge did not abuse his discretion in imposing the sentence of incarceration or in requiring the defendant to provide written disclosure to prospective tenants as a condition of probation. We do not address the defendant’s constitutional objections to being required to attend the class on Islam as a condition of probation, which were not raised in the trial court. We further conclude that the judge’s other contested rulings were not error. Accordingly, we affirm. Trial proceedings. We recite the facts the jury could have found, reserving certain details for later […]