Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1986

The court affirmed the defendant’s convictions for rape and drugging for unlawful sexual intercourse. It concluded that the evidence supported both convictions, that the exclusion of rehabilitation testimony was harmless, and that prior-misconduct and fresh-complaint evidence were properly admitted; the defendant’s…

The court held that newly discovered evidence must be both genuinely new and sufficiently important and credible to create a substantial risk that it would have been a real factor in the jury’s deliberations.