Commonwealth v. Gonsalves

Hermany Gonsalves is charged with assault and battery and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. The complainant is unavailable to testify at trial and previously has not been subject to cross-examination. A judge in the District Court determined in a pretrial ruling that out-of-court statements made by the complainant in response to questioning by a police officer and questioning by her mother were testimonial in nature and therefore inadmissible under the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) (Crawford). The Commonwealth…