Commonwealth v. Morales

The defendant, Arcángel Morales, appeals from his conviction of manslaughter. The principal question before us concerns the rule adopted by this court in Commonwealth v. Adjutant, 443 Mass. 649 (2005) (Adjutant). The question is this: during a trial where the defendant raises a claim of self-defense *303and, pursuant to Adjutant, has been permitted to introduce evidence of the victim’s prior violent acts on the issue of the identity of the first aggressor, may the Commonwealth introduce evidence of the defendant’s prior violent acts on that same issue — to be followed by an instruction that the…