463 Mass. 353 - Appellee Commonwealth Brief - Mass Cases

etween the defendants' drug dealing activity and their
residence. (pages 16-21) .
II. The legal standards are set out. (pages 22-
24) This Court has consistently applied all of the
"Degraca factors" to determine whether a Melendez-Diaz
error was harmless, including "the premise of the
defense" factor and the "whether the erroneously
admitted evidence was merely cumulative of properiy
admitted evidence" factor. (pages 24-27) The
underlying claim of prejudice associated with "tainted
evidence," which Ronald Mendes now argues requires that
no evidence admitted in the defense case-in-chief be
considered in the harmless error calculus, is already
built into our traditional harmless error
jurisprudence. (pages 27-38) Applying those factors,
the admission of the certificates of analysis for the
drugs was harmless error. (pages 38-41)
III. Evidence concerning the content of phone
calls that were placed to the defendants' cellular
phones did not create a substantial risk of a
miscarriage of justice or violate the wiretap statute,
G. L. c. 272, § 99. (pages 43-46) The testimony was
not offered for the truth of the statements that were
made by the callers, but to establish that the
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