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Appeals Court presses prosecutors and defense on prior-bad-acts, severance and immunized witness in Hill appeal
Summary
In Commonwealth v. Hill, the defense argued that admission of highly inflammatory earlier allegations and testimony from an immunized witness prejudiced a later trial on a separate incident; the prosecutor said corroborating evidence (video, 911 call) made any error harmless. The panel probed admissibility standards and preservation.
At oral argument in Commonwealth v. Hill, defense attorney Philip Weber told the panel that evidence of prior violent incidents — including a gun held to a victim’s head and an alleged trigger pull the night before another charged assault — should have been excluded or the counts severed because they unfairly prejudiced jurors called to decide the narrower offense the following day.
"These allegations from the 23rd are massive," Weber said, arguing that graphic prior-night testimony converted a single act into a perceived pattern of conduct…
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