Today the Appeals Court issued a slip opinion reversing a defendant’s conviction for an alleged restraining order violation.
According to court documents, the defendant and his mother shared a two-family home.
A district court judge gave the mother a restraining order against her son in 2022. The order allowed the defendant to remain on the first floor of the home but required him to stay 5 feet away from his mother who live on the second floor.
Shortly after the order was granted, surveillance video outside the mother’s unit allegedly showed the defendant standing at her doorstep.
The mother was not home at the time. Nevertheless, the defendant was charged with violating the stay away order.
He was convicted and his attorney appealed the verdict.
Because the mother was not home when the son allegedly stood at her doorstep, the terms of the restraining order were not violated:
We agree with the defendant that the evidence was insufficient to establish that he violated the terms and conditions of the order. The modification of the order required that the defendant remain five feet away from the complainant when he was inside the residence and fifty feet away from the complainant when in all other public places. Given the specific language of the modification order, which was underscored by the judge at the two-party hearing, we are not persuaded by the Commonwealth’s contention that the order prohibited the defendant from being within five feet of the complainant’s residence. Neither the initial order nor the modified order contained any language requiring the defendant to stay a particular distance away from the complainant’s residence.
The full text of the slip opinion is attached below.