Commonwealth v. Ditsch

The defendant was convicted after a jury-waived trial in a District Court of having made threats of bodily harm in violation of G. L. c. 275, §§ 2, 3 and 4. The threats were allegedly made in letters written to the defendant’s mother-in-law in Stoughton from the Norfolk County house of correction, where the defendant was incarcerated. He had recently begun to serve a sentence of two and a half years at that institution. The only issue raised on appeal is whether the conviction was proper inasmuch as the defendant, being behind bars at the time the letters were written, lacked the present…