Attempted Murder - Massachusetts
Jun 10, 2015OUTCOME: Not Guilty
The client, a forty-year- old auto mechanic was charged with Armed Assault with Intent to Murder, Mayhem, Assault and Battery by Means of a Dangerous Weapon with Serious Bodily Injury, and Assault and ... Battery by Means of a Dangerous Weapon. He faced a total of seventy years in State Prison if found guilty of the charges. The case arose when the client was in his backyard at night arguing with his girlfriend. She called her ex-husband, who weighs 300 pounds and is 6’2”, to come and get her without my client’s knowledge. Half an hour later the ex-husband (victim) arrived at my clients’ house and exited his vehicle. The victim testified my client attacked him with a knife slashing him five times in the head, face and neck area resulting in approximately one hundred and fifty stitches and staples to close the wounds. My client then ran off into the woods and was found hiding by the police with a canine dog. My client was arrested and brought to the station for questioning and was given a public defender. The next day he was held without bail in the county jail. Attorney Bratton was retained, and was subsequently able to have the client released on an ankle bracelet and $10,000.00 cash bail. The clients’ version of events, was that the victim arrived at his house and ran at him yelling “I’m going to f*$&in kill you,” although he did not have a weapon. The client testified before the jury of twelve that the 300lb victim punched him in the face, breaking his glasses and knocking him to the ground when he dove on him. The victim put him in a headlock, and began to choke him at which time my client, who was suffocating, began to wildly flail at the victim with the knife to attempt to get out from under him. After a three day trial in Lowell Superior Court the jury agreed with the clients self defense version of events and Attorney Bratton obtained an acquittal on all charges.
