Commonwealth v. Oppenheim

A Superior Court jury convicted the defendant, David Oppenheim, of five counts of rape of a child. See G. L. c. 265, § 23. He appeals upon multiple grounds, but argues principally that the trial judge should have instructed the jury that, before they could consider a confession contained in an instant message (IM) conversation, 2 the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant authored the confession. For the following reasons, we affirm.

Background. 1. Commonwealth’s evidence. From the Commonwealth’s main witnesses, the jury heard the following evidence. We reserve…