Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

369 Mass. 956

Rachal v. Commonwealth

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided October 30, 1975

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1975-10-30

Relies on Breed v. Jones · Stokes v. Commonwealth

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1975-10-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently July 2011

8 state decisions

4019751980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1The single justice did not err in dismissing this petition for a writ of error. In the Superior Court the petitioner had pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree. In spite of his plea of guilty we consider his petition. In the petition he alleged error in juvenile proceedings held in the Municipal Court of Brookline in 1968. There was no error in these proceedings, which complied with all standards applicable at the time. The case is quite similar on its facts to Stokes v. Commonwealth, 368 Mass. 754 (1975). While the question of double jeopardy was not raised in this case, had it been it is our view that the holding of Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519 (1975), would not have been applicable. Had it been applicable, as the Stokescase makes clear, its applicability would not have been retroactive. There is nothing in any other assignment of error.

¶2Judgment affirmed.

¶3The case was submitted on briefs.

/369/mass/956 · .json · Public domain