{"id":1581,"date":"2010-08-22T01:11:44","date_gmt":"2010-08-22T01:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.massachusettscriminaldefenselawyerblog.com\/2010\/08\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma.html"},"modified":"2010-08-22T01:11:44","modified_gmt":"2010-08-22T01:11:44","slug":"first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma\/","title":{"rendered":"FIRST COMPLAINT DOCTRINE IN MASSACHUSETTS SEX CRIMES CASES REVISITED IN RECENT APPEALS COURT DECISION"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Massachusetts Appeals Court<\/a> revisited the doctrine of the first complaint witness in the recent decision of Commonwealth v. Aviles<\/u>, decided on August 16, 2010. In Aviles, the defendant appealed his conviction of rape and indecent assault and battery arguing that the trial judge committed error of law in admitting evidence of multiple complaint witnesses. This ruling represents an important decision for criminal defense lawyers, defending sex crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer<\/a>, charges of sexual assault generally raise an evidentiary issue known as the first compliant doctrine. Under the first complaint doctrine, defined by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court<\/a>, in Commonwealth v. King<\/u>, 445 Mass. 217 (2005), the prosecutor is only permitted to have the first person to whom the victim told of the alleged assault to testify at trial. <\/p>\n

The rationale for the doctrine is to refute the notion that silence is a sign of lack of credibility of the victim. In other areas of criminal law, a victim would not be permitted to testify that she told someone else about a crime as the testimony would be inadmissible hearsay. Accordingly, the first complaint doctrine is essentially a special exception to the hearsay rule. The SJC in King<\/u> limited the evidence to one witness out of concern that permitting numerous complaint witnesses to testify would deprive the defendant of a fair trial and unfairly enhance the credibility of the victim. <\/p>\n

Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Massachusetts Appeals Court revisited the doctrine of the first complaint witness in the recent decision of Commonwealth v. Aviles, decided on August 16, 2010. In Aviles, the defendant appealed his conviction of rape and indecent assault and battery arguing that the trial judge committed error of law in admitting evidence of multiple complaint witnesses. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-crimes"],"yoast_head":"\nFIRST COMPLAINT DOCTRINE IN MASSACHUSETTS SEX CRIMES CASES REVISITED IN RECENT APPEALS COURT DECISION — Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog — August 22, 2010<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Massachusetts Appeals Court revisited the doctrine of the first complaint witness in the recent decision of Commonwealth v. Aviles, decided on August — August 22, 2010\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"FIRST COMPLAINT DOCTRINE IN MASSACHUSETTS SEX CRIMES CASES REVISITED IN RECENT APPEALS COURT DECISION — Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog — August 22, 2010\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The Massachusetts Appeals Court revisited the doctrine of the first complaint witness in the recent decision of Commonwealth v. Aviles, decided on August — August 22, 2010\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael DelSignore\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"FIRST COMPLAINT DOCTRINE IN MASSACHUSETTS SEX CRIMES CASES REVISITED IN RECENT APPEALS COURT DECISION — Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog — August 22, 2010","description":"The Massachusetts Appeals Court revisited the doctrine of the first complaint witness in the recent decision of Commonwealth v. Aviles, decided on August — August 22, 2010","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"FIRST COMPLAINT DOCTRINE IN MASSACHUSETTS SEX CRIMES CASES REVISITED IN RECENT APPEALS COURT DECISION — Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog — August 22, 2010","twitter_description":"The Massachusetts Appeals Court revisited the doctrine of the first complaint witness in the recent decision of Commonwealth v. Aviles, decided on August — August 22, 2010","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Michael DelSignore","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma\/","url":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma\/","name":"FIRST COMPLAINT DOCTRINE IN MASSACHUSETTS SEX CRIMES CASES REVISITED IN RECENT APPEALS COURT DECISION — Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog — August 22, 2010","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-08-22T01:11:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0bc58f94b3abb11fcd52cf8961c0a6e"},"description":"The Massachusetts Appeals Court revisited the doctrine of the first complaint witness in the recent decision of Commonwealth v. Aviles, decided on August — August 22, 2010","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/first-complaint-doctrine-in-ma\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"FIRST COMPLAINT DOCTRINE IN MASSACHUSETTS SEX CRIMES CASES REVISITED IN RECENT APPEALS COURT DECISION"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/","name":"Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Massachusetts Criminal Defense Attorney \u2014 Michael DelSignore","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0bc58f94b3abb11fcd52cf8961c0a6e","name":"Michael DelSignore","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2c2feb8b4aa63cb661df76a3a12db20d4c03eb82a70a095b3d26cfac38d5dc0b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2c2feb8b4aa63cb661df76a3a12db20d4c03eb82a70a095b3d26cfac38d5dc0b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Michael DelSignore"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}