Commonwealth v. Ross

Rule 35 (g) of the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure, 378 Mass. 906 (1979), provides that, other conditions being met, a deposition may be admitted as substantive evidence in a criminal trial “if the judge finds that the deponent is unavailable.” At the time of the trial of this case, an *556alleged victim of two of the crimes charged against the defendant was a student in Israel and on spring break in Rome. Based on these facts alone, the trial judge ruled that the student was unavailable and allowed her videotaped deposition to be shown to the jury. To justify the admission of that…