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Defense urges reversal in Shanley appeal, citing repeated complaint evidence and jury-instruction errors
Summary
In Commonwealth v. Shanley, defense counsel argued the trial admitted prejudicial repeated complaint testimony from medical staff and urged the Appeals Court to reverse or remand, also challenging a consciousness-of-guilt instruction and the application of sentencing-enhancement statutes. The Commonwealth responded that record misstatements and evidentiary limits constrain relief.
Defense counsel Timothy St. Lawrence, representing Charles Shanley, asked the Massachusetts Appeals Court to reverse or remand Shanley’s convictions, arguing that the trial improperly admitted multiple-complaint evidence and that a consciousness-of-guilt jury instruction was legally defective.
St. Lawrence told the panel the most troublesome error was allowing a hospital nurse to repeat detailed statements that the victim, identified in the record as "KW," had made about sexual assaults at a Motel 6. "She was allowed to testify that KW told her this twice at the beginning of the examination and then again later in the examination," St. Lawrence said, urging the court that such testimony served only to repeat the victim’s story and produced an unfair prejudicial effect in a close credibility contest.
The petition pressed two linked legal points: (1) that repeated out-of-court statements documented in medical…
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