43 Mass. App. Ct. 733
Decided November 4, 1997
Massachusetts Appeals Court · decided 1997-11-04
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1997-11-04
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently September 2017
8 state decisions
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.
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¶1(dissenting). I would affirm the order allowing the defendant’s motion for a required finding of not guilty on the charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. I do not think the trial judge erred.
¶2The Commonwealth must prove its case beyond a reasonable *737doubt. A person cannot be convicted on guesswork. Here, the majority is permitting a conviction based on speculation as to the type and nature of the dangerous weapon.