Commonwealth v. Adrian Hinds

Summary

The court affirmed the defendant's convictions for two counts of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. It held that the trial judge acted within the judge's discretion in admitting a threatening text message and two racially derogatory social media posts as rebuttal evidence relevant to the defendant's animus, intent, and self-defense claim. The court also held that excluding a late-disclosed expert on the posts' authorship neither constituted an abuse of discretion nor violated the defendant's constitutional right to present a defense.