Commonwealth v. Greene

The defendant has appealed from his conviction of the manslaughter of his four months old son on Sunday, December 17, 1978. The cause of death (an extensive fracture of the skull which could not have been the result of a fall) was conceded, and the only question at trial was who among the four adult occupants of a locked apartment had killed the child. 1. The mother’s sister, a periodic visitor at the apartment, was permitted to testify over objection that on the second Sunday prior to the death the defendant had slapped the child’s bottom, called him an “asshole” and “[t]aken him by the neck…