![]() The basis for the provocation, the defendant argued, was Galperina's (false) disclosure that he was not the father.Ī Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of two counts of murder in the first degree. At trial, there was no dispute that the defendant had stabbed Galperina the primary issue before the jury was whether the fatal stabbing had been mitigated by heat of passion upon reasonable provocation so as to reduce the defendant's liability from murder to manslaughter. On the evening of May 16, 2009, the defendant repeatedly stabbed his nine months pregnant girlfriend, Yuliya Galperina, killing her and her viable fetus. Marina Moriarty, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on August 21, 2009. Īt a murder trial, no substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice arose from the judge's discharge of a deliberating juror without informing the juror, prior to a voir dire, that she could not be discharged unless she had a personal problem unrelated to her relationship with other jurors or their views of the case, where defense counsel requested the discharge of the juror and objected to her remaining on the jury, and where the defendant pointed to no prejudice. Īt a murder trial, the judge's instruction to the jury on the necessity of finding that a fetus was viable did not constitute structural error or create a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice. ![]() ![]() Īt a murder trial, no substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice arose from the prosecutor's single mention in closing argument of a theory (i.e., transferred intent) on which the Commonwealth had not sought an instruction, where the use of the term was in passing and vague in the context of the argument as a whole, and where the judge instructed the jury on the nature of closing arguments further, no prejudice to the defendant arose from the prosecutor's statement in closing argument that words could not furnish the provocation necessary for manslaughter, where the judge instructed the jury on provocation. Īt a murder trial, the judge did not abuse his discretion in declining to admit evidence of a comment offered to demonstrate the victim's alleged pattern of misconduct, where the judge, following a voir dire, found that the comment did not establish a pattern and that the defendant was attempting to introduce the evidence for impermissible propensity purposes likewise, the judge's limitation regarding testimony by the defendant's psychological expert witness on direct examination about the basis of his knowledge did not deprive the defendant of a fair trial or prevent him from presenting a full defense finally, no prejudicial error arose from the judge's decision to deny the defendant's motion to strike the testimony of the Commonwealth's expert witness based on the witness's failure to frame her opinion in terms of being held to a reasonable degree of psychological certainty. Īt a murder trial, the evidence was sufficient to permit a rational juror to find that the defendant specifically intended to kill a viable fetus when the defendant stabbed its mother, who was then nine months pregnant. The common-law rule of liability for the death of a viable fetus, requiring the direct infliction of prenatal injuries, did not preclude the defendant's conviction of murder for the death of the fetus when stabbing the mother, who was then nine months pregnant, where, although no wound was inflicted on or touched the fetus, the defendant repeatedly stabbed the mother in, among other areas, the location of her vital organs, thereby destroying the fetus through the cessation of life-sustaining maternal blood flow further, interpretation of the common-law definition of murder did not constitute an unlawful usurpation of the Legislature's authority. This court announced that, going forward, it no longer would recognize that an oral discovery of infidelity satisfied the objective element of something that would provoke a reasonable person to kill his or her spouse. Jury and Jurors.Īt a murder trial, although the defendant had grounds upon which to argue that the Commonwealth failed to establish that there were no mitigating circumstances that would reduce the stabbing from murder to manslaughter, the jury, having been instructed properly on both murder and manslaughter, were free to disregard the defendant's explanation and reasonably could have adopted the Commonwealth's theory. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Argument by prosecutor, Instructions to jury, Jury and jurors, Deliberation of jury. Evidence, Prior misconduct, Pattern of conduct, Expert opinion, Intent.
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