Commonwealth v. Adjutant

The court today holds that a “victim’s prior violent conduct may be probative in determining whether the victim was the first aggressor where a claim of self-defense has been asserted and the identity of the first aggressor is in dispute.”1 Ante at 650. In particular, the court creates a new rule of evidence in which prior acts of violence “reasonably alleged to have [been] initiated” by a victim, and unknown to a defendant, may be admitted to establish a victim’s tendency toward violence. Id. Because I believe that past acts of violence by a victim, unknown to a defendant, do little to help…