Commonwealth v. Wood (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-128-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-1389 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. JAMES WOOD. No. 14-P-1389. Middlesex. October 7, 2015. – September 16, 2016. Present: Katzmann, Rubin, & Wolohojian, JJ. Assault by Means of a Dangerous Weapon. Evidence, Illustrative exhibit, Best and secondary. Practice, Criminal, Instructions to jury, Argument by prosecutor. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on March 10, 2011. The cases were tried before Sandra L. Hamlin, J. Joseph J. Mazza for the defendant. Jessica Langsam, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. KATZMANN, J. The defendant appeals from his conviction by a Superior Court jury of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury (ABDW-SBI). He challenges the admission in evidence of a compilation of portions of previously admitted exhibits that had been sequenced and highlighted by the Commonwealth, and the trial judge’s instruction on absence of right or excuse.[1] We affirm. Background. The jury could have found as follows. Around 9:20 P.M. on May 16, 2010, Carlos Serpa arrived at Lawrence Memorial Hospital suffering from multiple stab wounds: one to his back, two to his left leg, and one to his left arm. He had been driven to the hospital in his own vehicle[2] by his friend Michael Diceglie, who had insisted on securing Serpa medical treatment despite the latter’s protestations when he showed up bleeding at Diceglie’s front door. Although neither Serpa nor Diceglie telephoned 911, hospital personnel notified the police as required when a patient presents as a victim of a stabbing. When uniformed officers from the Medford police department arrived, Serpa — who was on probation following his release from prison on a sentence arising from armed robbery convictions — told the officers that he was stabbed by an unknown dark-skinned male in dark clothing, who tried to rob him as he was getting out of his vehicle in front of Diceglie’s apartment on Myrtle Street in Medford. The officers considered Serpa’s answers to their questions to be vague and likely not entirely truthful. One of the uniformed officers then visited Myrtle Street and located a blood trail, prompting him to secure the crime scene and notify detectives. Medford police Detectives Michael Goulding and Patricia Sullivan arrived at Myrtle Street later that same evening and began investigating the blood […]