COMMONWEALTH v. GEGA

1 Citing case

  1. Commonwealth v. Hamilton

    459 Mass. 422 (Mass. 2011)   Cited 79 times
    Reversing conviction for threatening call made to parole officer who had found defendant in violation; court applies rule of lenity to resolve statutoiy ambiguity

    In memoranda and orders issued pursuant to its rule 1:28, the Appeals Court implicitly has assumed that a person might be threatened with a crime against another, typically a family member. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Gega, 11 Mass. App. Ct. 1121 (2010) (communications, including electronic mail message stating, "At the end your nice children will pay," threatened victim and family); Commonwealth v. Dupont, 58 Mass. App. Ct. 1111 (2003) (threat adequately communicated where victim "heard the threat and was the intended recipient of a threat to commit a crime against his family"). By its terms, the language used in § 2 requires a threat (against someone) of a crime (against the person or property of another), but does not state that the threat be issued against the intended crime victim.