Commonwealth v. Williams

The defendant’s conviction on a charge of operating under the influence, second offense (see G. L. c. 90, § 24[1][a][1], second par.), must be *916reversed for two obvious errors in the judge’s final charge to the six-person jury. First, the judge instructed the jury that, as a result of evidence that the defendant had scored .12 on his breathalyzer test (see G. L. c. 90, § 24[1][e]), “[tjhere shall be an inference that [the] defendant was under the influence of intoxicating liquor” (emphasis added). There was no other ameliorating instruction which put the matter of the test score in the proper…