## Facts

- Rhonda Adjutant worked as an escort and was dispatched to Stephen Whiting’s basement apartment after he requested an escort service.
- Whiting paid for an hour and a “full body massage,” then used cocaine and demanded sexual intercourse; Adjutant refused and called the dispatcher, who confirmed intercourse was not included.
- Whiting demanded a refund and was told he would receive only a partial refund; the confrontation escalated.
- Whiting armed himself with a crowbar; Adjutant armed herself with a knife.
- Whiting struck a counter and hit Adjutant’s leg with the crowbar; Adjutant cut Whiting’s face with the knife.
- Two employees of the escort service arrived, heard Adjutant screaming, and entered as Whiting again advanced toward her with the crowbar.
- Adjutant stabbed Whiting in the neck, killing him.
- Adjutant was tried in Superior Court and convicted of voluntary manslaughter; her defense was that she acted in self-defense while trying to escape.
- Adjutant sought to introduce evidence of Whiting’s prior violent acts and violent reputation, discovered after the incident and unknown to her at the time, to show Whiting was the first aggressor.
- The trial judge excluded the evidence on the ground that, because Adjutant lacked prior knowledge of Whiting’s violence, the evidence was inadmissible.

## Issues

1. In a self-defense case where the identity of the first aggressor is disputed, may the defendant introduce evidence of the victim’s specific prior violent acts, even if the defendant did not know of them at the time of the incident, to prove the victim was the first aggressor?
2. Did the trial judge commit prejudicial error by treating such evidence as categorically inadmissible rather than a matter within the court’s discretion?

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court reversed the voluntary manslaughter conviction and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held that, as a matter of Massachusetts common law, trial judges have discretion to admit evidence of specific incidents of violence initiated by the victim when self-defense is properly raised and the first aggressor is genuinely in dispute.
- The court concluded the trial judge erred by believing she lacked discretion to admit the proffered evidence and excluding it on that basis.
- The error was prejudicial because who initiated the violence was central to the self-defense claim and the excluded evidence was probative on that question.

## Legal Principles

- When self-defense is properly raised and the identity of the first aggressor is disputed, the trial judge may admit evidence of specific prior violent acts reasonably alleged to have been initiated by the victim as circumstantial evidence that the victim was the first aggressor.
- Such “first aggressor” evidence may be admissible even if unknown to the defendant at the time, because it bears on what likely occurred, not on the defendant’s contemporaneous state of mind.
- By contrast, when violent-character evidence is offered to show the reasonableness of the defendant’s fear or the degree of force used, the defendant’s knowledge of the victim’s violence remains a key foundation.
- Admission is not automatic; the judge must apply standard probative-prejudice balancing and may limit the scope, number, or detail of incidents to reduce unfair prejudice, confusion, or delay.

## Conclusion

The court recognized a discretionary, limited exception in self-defense cases permitting specific-acts evidence of a victim’s prior violence—unknown to the defendant—to help resolve a genuine dispute over who was the first aggressor, and ordered a new trial because the jury was deprived of potentially probative evidence by a categorical exclusion.


Commonwealth v. Adjutant, 443 Mass. 649, 824 N.E.2d 1 (Mass. 2005)