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South Boston man who beat neighbor to death with a baseball bat to continue to spend rest of life in prison, court rules
By adamg on Fri, 04/08/2016 - 10:38am
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today it had no reason to overturn Adam Cassino's first-degree murder conviction for the death of neighbor Barbara Tagen, 65, in her Andrew Square apartment in 2011.
The ruling means Cassino will spend the rest of his life in state prison without chance of parole.
Cassino argued he should, at the least, get a new trial because Boston Police who'd quickly zeroed in on him as a suspect after Tagen's body was discovered got a look at his blood-stained shoes, being held in a storage area at Bridgewater State Hospital, without a warrant.
Cassino's mother had him committed to Bridgewater for drug addiction - a few days after authorities say he beat Tagen to death.
The state's highest court declined to say whether a hospital worker showing the shoes to a Boston cop without a warrant violated Cassino's Fourth-Amendment rights, because police already had enough evidence to get a search warrant - which they did - to seize the shoes as evidence, in particular, the fact that the attack on Tagen was so brutal that it would have been almost impossible for her attacker to have escaped without getting splattered with her blood.
Since police had a valid search warrant, obtained without any evidence related to the initial look at the shoes, they remained valid evidence at trial, the court ruled.
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| Attachment | Size |
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 Complete Cassino ruling | 91.04 KB |
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Comments
Sad
Thoughts and prayers for the victims family and friends.
Interesting how defense lawyers
seem to be interested in the Constitution and protecting their client's rights only AFTER their client has been proven guilty by the perponderence of the evidence.
If you suspect evidence was obtained without a warrant, the time to raise the issue is before the original trial, not after a jury has ruled against you.
IANAL, and I'm guessing you're not either
First, preponderance of evidence is the burden of proof for civil cases, not criminal ones where guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is required.
Second, doesn't what you suggest completely negate the entire point of appeals courts? My assumption is that once the trial judge allowed the evidence, the trial has to proceed with that. Their only recourse at that point would be to bring it up at appeal. Right?
Great job demonstrating how
Great job demonstrating how arrogance and ignorance go hand-in-hand.
The fact that this was an issue at appeal means the lawyer did raise - in fact must have raised - the issue at trial. That is, if you don't raise an issue at trial, you can't appeal based on that issue. Appeals are, in fact, a result of someone raising an issue at trial and then disagreeing with the ruling the trial judge handed down.
From what I've read/heard, Barbara Tagen was no
From what I've heard/read, Barbara Tagen was no saint (Ishe was involved with drugs and all.), but that didn't give Adam Cassino the right to bludgeon the woman to death. Glad to hear that Adam Cassino will be spending the rest of his life in prison, with no chance of parole, where he belongs.
No saint?
Did you know the woman? Surrounding any murder are always rumors and I suspect that they come from the family of Adam Casino. She was a 65 yr. old woman! How deeply involved in drugs could she have been? He was the drug addict. The newspaper reported that she was a social worker and a nurse so please don't speak ill of the dead when you don't even know what you're talking about. I hope that coward gets what he deserves in prison. All those convicted killers have mothers and this is looked on as one of the lowest crimes anyone can commit.