I recently had a case in the Somerville district court where I represented a client accused of witness intimidation and assault and battery.
The charges arose from a domestic dispute. My client and his wife got into an ugly dispute, and the police were called. My client’s wife told the police that my client had punched her and threatened to kill her if she called the police. My client was arrested and charged with assault and battery and witness intimidation.
Marital Privilege and Criminal Law
Under the laws of Massachusetts (and in most other states), a husband or wife cannot be compelled to testify against their spouse in court. This legal principle is know as the Marital Privilege (or Spousal Privilege).
At our second court date on the case, my client’s wife chose to invoke her marital privilege. She did not want to testify against her husband as a witness. In this case, without the wife’s direct testimony, there was no additional evidence.
The police cannot testify to what the wife told them at the time of the arrest. That evidence would be inadmissible in court as heresay. With no other evidence before the court, the charges against my client were dismissed.
Witness Intimidation
Witness intimidation is a felony offense punishable by up to 2 1/2 years in the house of correction, or up to 10 years in state prison. There is no mandatory minimum.
It is a scary sounding charge, evoking organized crime or gang members threatening a citizen not to rat them up. But the statute is worded broadly, and therefore applied broadly.
It is often charged in domestic violence cases and used as leverage.
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