Com. v. Roselli
| Decision Date | 27 November 1956 |
| Citation | 138 N.E.2d 607,335 Mass. 38 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Anthony ROSELLI (four cases). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
John J. Harrington, Asst. Dist. Atty., Fall River, for plaintiff.
Kenneth L. Sullivan, Fall River, for defendant.
Before WILKINS, C. J., and RONAN, SPALDING, WILLIAMS and WHITTEMORE, JJ.
About nine o'clock in the evening of November 18, 1947, Richard Coffin and his wife returned to their home in Dartmouth. Upon entering it they were met by three partially masked men, all of whom were armed. Coffin was beaten until he was unconscious and Mrs. Coffin, at gun point, was ordered to open a safe on the second floor from which the intruders took jewelry, the value of which was in excess of $200,000. After binding Mrs. Coffin and her husband, hands and feet, the intruders stole the Coffins' automobile and fled.
In December, 1954, the defendant was arrested and was subsequently brought to trial on several indictments charging offences arising out of the above described event. He was found guilty and sentenced on an indictment charging robbery, and on another charging a related offence. The case, having been tried pursuant to G.L. (Ter.Ed.) c. 278, §§ 33A-33G, as amended, comes here by appeal. The only questions presented by the defendant's assignments of error arise from three rulings on evidence.
At the trial the chief witness for the Commonwealth was Mrs. Coffin, and the principal issue was the identification of the defendant as one of the robbers. There was evidence that Mrs. Coffin first identified the defendant in a police line-up in Providence in December, 1954, and she identified him at the trial as one of the robbers. She also testified that one Cairo and one Collici were the other two. 1 It appeared that prior to that she had on several occasions viewed other police line-ups, including one in Hartford, Connecticut. In two of the line-ups viewed by Mrs. Coffin was a man named Conroy, but Mrs. Coffin testified that she did not identify him as one of the robbers.
In this setting one Hervey, chief of police of Dartmouth, was called by the prosecution and testified that he had taken Mrs. Coffin to numerous police line-ups including two where Conroy was present. In cross-examination Hervey testified that he had gone to Hartford, Connecticut, with Mrs. Coffin to view a police line-up, and on that occasion he pointed to a man on the end of the line-up and asked her if she had ever seen him before; that Mrs. Coffin replied that she had; and that the person so identified was Conroy. Hervey was asked if he 'relay[ed] what transpired in Hartford * * * to * * * [the] district attorney's office' and he replied that he had. Counsel for the defendant then put the following question: 'And as a result of the information you gave the district attorney, was not...
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Com. v. Binkiewicz
...to be protected from being obliged to encounter such collateral charges.' [146 Mass. 512, 16 N.E. 283.] Compare Commonwealth v. Roselli, 335 Mass. 38, 40, 138 N.E.2d 607. We think, however, that there was no reversible error for it appears that no prejudice could have resulted to Binkiewicz......
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Com. v. Jewett
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