463 Mass. 353 - Appellee Commonwealth Brief - Mass Cases

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in the case of a violation of a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel that should have led to suppression, this Honorable Court did not hesitate to reiterate that the state and federal legal standard requires that it is "the record of the entire trial" (including the testimony offered by the defendant in his case in chief) that should be reviewed. Commonwealth v. Howard, 446 Mass. 563, 570-571 (2006) ("The admission of testimony obtained in violation of [the] defendant's [right to counsel] will not amount to reversible error 'if the reviewing court may confidently say, on the whole record, that the constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt."'), quoting Commonwealth v. Miles, 420 Mass. 67, 73 (1995) and VanArsdall, 475 U.S. at 68'1 (emphasis added) . The only exception would be where the Sixth Amendment violation "contaminated" the "entire criminal proceeding." Howard, 446 Mass. at 570. No such "contamination" appears here. This is not surprising, because a-Melendez-Diaz error by its nature is not the kind of error that should structurally "contaminate" an entire prosecution. In Melendez-Diaz error cases, it is worth noting, the Court is not even faced with the kind of error that leads to suppression. 34
This circumstance fits comfortably within the contours of our law concerning structural error. Compare Howard, 446 Mass. at 570 ("Where the error caused by the Sixth Amendment violation is limited to the erroneous admission of particular evidence at trial, as is the case here, the harmless error analysis applies."), internal quotes and citations omitted, with Commonwealth v. Cohen (No. 1), 456 Mass. 94, lOS (2010) (the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial "is a structural error and not susceptible to harmless error analysis.") See generally Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. at 23 & n.8 (discussing the kinds of structural error that defy normal harmless error analysis) . In Howard, for example, this Honorable Court reviewed the Sixth Amendment right to counsel violation -- a violation which should have led to suppression -- in light of the record of the entire trial, considering the defendant's own testimony and other evidence offered by the defendant, and concluded that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 571. See id., at Therefore, it can be seen that these sorts of cases do not tend to present a circumstance such as was presented in Commonwealth v. Charras, 443 Mass. at 765- 35
Page 1 and 2: COMMONWEALTH OF .MASSACHUSETTS SUPR
Page 3 and 4: B. Applying the Degraca/Mahdi Facto
Page 5 and 6: Cases Commonwealth v. Degraca, 447
Page 7 and 8: Cases Commonwealth v. Todisco, 363
Page 9 and 10: COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS SUPRE
Page 11 and 12: The defendants moved to suppress ev
Page 13: in a primarily residential neighbor
Page 17: informants are used in drug investi
Page 20 and 21: (an eighth of an·ounce of cocaine)
Page 23: etween the defendants' drug dealing
Page 26 and 27: 431 (1992), or the informant has pr
Page 28 and 29: Blake, 413 Mass. 823, 828 (1992). N
Page 31 and 32: Fifth Amendment violation can be ha
Page 34 and 35: This test has been applied repeated
Page 36 and 37: factors call for the reviewing Cour
Page 38 and 39: at 554, If the overall strength of
Page 40: counsel for Ronald Mendes actually
Page 45 and 46: seized. But the testimony of the de
Page 48: client is going to concede that he
Page 51 and 52: Westbrooks, 79 Mass. App. Ct. 417,
Page 53 and 54: of the statements made by the calle
Page 55 and 56: phones were used as instrumentaliti
Page 57 and 58: In factually analogous cases, the A

463 Mass. 353 - Appellee Commonwealth Brief - Mass Cases

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