Re: Question for all you "Americans"
Am I mistaken or does this mean it was because there was no evidence of prior abuse from this nanny? Just this one killing of this eight month old infant.
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NOTICE: This slip opinion is subject to formal revision and will be superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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, Room 1407, Boston, MA 02108; (617) 557-1030.
SJC-07635
COMMONWEALTH vs. LOUISE WOODWARD (and a companion case). Middlesex. March 9, 1998. - June 16, 1998. Present: Wilkins, C.J., Abrams, Lynch, Greaney, Fried, Marshall, & Ireland, JJ.
Although evidence of a single blow to a child of tender years may be sufficient to support a jury finding of malice, Commonwealth v. Starling, 382 Mass. 423, 426 (1981), such an inference is not necessarily required by evidence even of repeated blows to a young child. Commonwealth v. Vizcarrondo, ante 392, 397-398 (1998). In all the reported murder and manslaughter convictions in Massachusetts involving the battery of young children there was compelling evidence of multiple injuries from repeated instances of caretaker abuse, not death caused by a single fatal blow. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Day, 409 Mass. 719, 720-721, 723-726 (1991) (manslaughter conviction reversed on erroneous admission of "profile" testimony); Commonwealth v. Hutchinson, 395 Mass. 568, 573-575 (1985) (murder in the first degree affirmed). (15) The Commonwealth did not claim that Woodward had ever abused or injured Matthew prior to the fatal injury. (16) Where there was no evidence in this case of repeated caretaker abuse, the judge did not abuse his discretion in concluding that the jury verdict of murder was not proportionate with convictions in other cases, including those cases resulting in convictions of manslaughter rather than murder. See Gaulden, supra at 556 (whether jury verdict is "markedly inconsistent" with verdicts returned in similar cases is appropriate consideration in deciding rule 25 ** [2] motion). (17)
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