# Commonwealth v. Appleby

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · April 1, 1980 · 380 Mass. 296

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9529663

## Case

- **Full name:** Commonwealth vs. Kenneth A. Appleby
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** April 1, 1980
- **Citations:** 380 Mass. 296; 402 N.E.2d 1051; 1980 Mass. LEXIS 1074
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Hennessey
- **Judges:** Hennessey, Quirico, Wilkins, Liacos, Abrams
- **Cited by:** 139 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9529663

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- applying this analysis in an assault and battery with a dangerous weapon case under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 15A, and noting that the fact that the assault was in the context of consensual sexual conduct was immaterial

## Opinion text

Hennessey, C.J.
(concurring). I concur with the result and the reasoning of the court’s opinion. I add these few *313 words to bring emphasis to the court’s expressed “reservation” as to the severity of the sentence imposed. The only incident which resulted in a guilty verdict was minor. It was a blow which “barely connected” with the victim’s back; it was a “glancing blow,” with no evidence of visible injury or after effects. We may speculate that the sentencing process was perhaps influenced by the indictments as to two more serious episodes of violence. However, the jury, by their not guilty verdicts, rejected those charges, and as a consequence they would have no proper bearing on the sentence. Perhaps the sentence here was unduly influenced by knowledge of other charges pending against the defendant at the time of this trial. Perhaps, also, the sentence was influenced by certain related circumstances which are abhorrent to most persons, but the defendant was not charged with those circumstances in any indictment. In sum, the sentencing result here is one which focuses on the compelling need for reasoned application of the broad sentencing discretion ordinarily available to our trial court.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9529663. Public record. Not legal advice.