Defense says judge wrongly barred medical records in Sanders appeal; justices probe 'evil' rhetoric in closing

The Supreme Judicial Court heard argument in Commonwealth v. Latarsha L. Sanders as defense attorney Robert Shaw told the justices that the trial judge's "wholesale exclusion" of medical records and related testimony was a clear error that deprived Sanders of evidence central to the question of her criminal responsibility.

Shaw said defense counsel had repeatedly sought admission of the records across seven volumes of the trial and in opening statement and that judicial rulings limiting the records prevented the jury from seeing the clinical foundation for the defense expert's conclusion that Sanders suffered from a psychotic disorder. "The prejudice here is enormous," Shaw told the court, noting that the excluded records supported severe mental‑illness findings and formed the "heart of the defense" on the issue of criminal responsibility.

The justices pressed Shaw on the prejudice standard and on portions of the pretrial record where defense counsel appeared to hedge about which records he wanted admitted. "As I read through the record ... there seems to be at least some waffling by trial counsel as to the need for these records," Justice Gaziano said, citing a pretrial discussion. Shaw responded that the pretrial remarks must be read in context and that the defense consistently sought to have the medical records considered by the jury.

The argument turned on Section 79 and related evidentiary rules governing medical records. Shaw said Section 79 makes medical records admissible and that the judge's discretion is circumscribed by the statute; the justices asked whether admissibility under Section 79 means automatic admission or whether a judge retains a meaningful discretionary reliability gate. Shaw warned that an interpretation that allows prosecutors to prevent unfavorable medical evidence from reaching a jury simply by declining to call an expert would "render 233.79 without force."

Assistant District Attorney Melissa Johnsen, arguing for the Commonwealth, told the court the trial judge had not abused his discretion and that the record contained almost 3,000 pages of medical material. Johnsen said she had reviewed the records and believed many of them—particularly some later diagnoses and material distant in time from the incident—would have undercut the defense expert's theory that a prefrontal‑lobe dysfunction explained Sanders's conduct. "I am confident that when this court reviews them ... they were actually more harmful to the defendant," Johnsen told the court.

Justices also focused on the prosecutor's closing‑argument language. Shaw argued that the prosecutor repeatedly characterized the defendant as "evil" and relied on television references (Shaw singled out an asserted "Law & Order: SVU" link) without evidentiary support. "There is no evidence of that," Shaw said of the SVU episodes and of any showing that Sanders watched them; he called the suggestion an improper character attack. The court discussed whether references to the defendant's own statements in jail calls and to non‑evidentiary cultural examples could permissibly be used to argue the legal standard of the ability to discern right from wrong.

The justices asked multiple follow‑up questions about timing (Shaw said the judge's written ruling came on the seventh day of trial), the role of the Commonwealth's expert (references were made to a government expert named Fiore), and whether the defense had other avenues—such as calling treating clinicians—to establish the records' foundation. Counsel and the court debated controlling precedents cited by the parties (including Chappell, Goddard, Waite, Chism, Rodriguez, and Bouchie v. Murray) over the presumptive reliability of treatment records and the interplay between statutory admissibility and confrontation concerns.

The argument presented a classic appellate tension: whether a judge may categorically exclude a large corpus of medical records on reliability grounds and whether any such exclusion was harmless or prejudicial where the central question before the jury was criminal responsibility. The court's questioning indicated attention to both the legal standards governing medical‑record admissibility and the practical consequences of excluding extensive evidence that the defense says underpins its expert opinions.

The court heard the arguments and questioned counsel at length; a decision from the justices will determine whether the exclusion and the contested portions of closing argument require reversal, a new trial, or affirmation of the conviction.