Commonwealth v. Chambers

The defendant was convicted by a Superior Court jury of the involuntary manslaughter of Edward Quiles. There was no dispute that the defendant had stabbed the victim to death, but the defendant contended that he did so in self-defense. *521Before trial, the judge ruled that, under our common-law rule of evidence established in Commonwealth v. Adjutant, 443 Mass. 649 (2005) {Adjutant), the defendant could offer evidence that the victim participated in a violent assault of a third person twenty-one months before the victim died in support of the defendant’s claim that the victim was the first…