Commonwealth v. Daley

Christopher Daley was convicted of indecent assault and battery by a jury sitting in the Cambridge Division of the District Court Department. The only witnesses at trial were the victim and the defendant. Their respective accounts of what occurred between them differed markedly, and the outcome clearly depended on the jury’s assessment of the credibility of their testimony. A divided panel of the Appeals Court reversed the conviction, Commonwealth v. Daley, 55 Mass. App. Ct. 88, *55994 (2002), on the ground of prosecutorial misconduct. It concluded that the prosecutor had presented the defendant…