Law360 (May 12, 2026, 4:01 PM EDT) -- A Massachusetts man who was convicted of assaulting police officers was not criminally responsible because the state hadn't shown he wasn't insane, an appeals court majority said Tuesday.
The two-justice majority
opinion said Manuel Brunette-Silveira, who was arrested after allegedly causing a disturbance at a courthouse and then spitting in the face of one officer and on the head of another, hadn't been shown to be criminally responsible.
"Although there was ample, uncontested evidence that the defendant spit on, hit, and threw toilet water at the officers, the trial evidence was insufficient to meet the commonwealth's burden," the majority said. It explained that the state failed to show that the defendant understood the criminality or wrongfulness of his actions.
The majority said that when a defendant like Brunette-Silveira claimed to have been not criminally responsible, the state had to show he actually was responsible, and not having a mental health crisis as he had argued.
In this case, a licensed psychologist from Bridgewater State Hospital "opined that on the day of the offense the defendant suffered from a chronic, major mental illness that included both psychotic symptoms and mood episodes, including what the expert characterized as a 'manic episode' at the time of the offense."
When the expert spoke with Brunette-Silveira, he learned that the defendant was experiencing hallucinations, according to the majority. While in the holding cell, the expert said Brunette-Silveira was "excessively masturbating and consuming his own semen" and "ingesting toilet water," the majority summarized.
These behaviors did not stop until Brunette-Silveira was medicated, the expert testified.
The state hadn't met its responsibility to show that Brunette-Silveira was responsible, the majority said, disagreeing with the dissent that the defendant had calmed down at certain points following the arrest and that was therefore proof of his criminal responsibility.
The majority ordered judgments of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility on four counts of assault and battery on a police officer, reversing the trial court, and remanded the case for proceedings "applicable to persons found not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility."
Brunette-Silveira's attorney, Meghan K. Oreste, told Law360 in a phone interview she was pleased with the court's decision.
"In our system, it's not good for anyone to have anyone who is really suffering from a mental illness go down a criminal track because the criminal track is punitive," she said.
"The appeals court did a great job here, because their job is to ensure the results are consistent with justice and fairness and what we want as a society," Oreste added.
In his dissent, Justice Christopher P. Hodgens wrote that it was extremely rare for a defendant to be found not criminally responsible and that this wasn't a rare case.
"When reviewing the denial of a motion for a required finding of not guilty, we should be focused on the commonwealth's evidence and indulge all reasonable inferences in favor of the commonwealth," Justice Hodgens wrote.
"At no point in the trial did the commonwealth's evidence compel the judge to find that the defendant lacked criminal responsibility for this conduct. Only by adverting to the defense evidence can the majority reach the result that it does," he added.
To Justice Hodgens, the fact that the defendant fled the courthouse and was arrested at a different location showed that he had the mental faculties to know that what he did was wrong.
Just because the majority did not like the finding of the trial court did not mean that it should be undone, the dissent said. "Until today, our appellate courts have never taken the question of criminal responsibility away from the fact finder," he said, noting that the state's highest court "has repeatedly cautioned against doing so."
He said it was the trial court's job to consider evidence and in this case, that court "notably considered and expressly rejected the testimony of the defense expert in its entirety. That alternative inferences may be drawn from the evidence by an appellate court does not render the evidence insufficient in the trial court."
Oreste said that she disagreed, and that "in this case, I think they did a good job of looking at the evidence." She explained that while the court had to evaluate the evidence in the light most favorable to the state, the state did not rebut the testimony by the psychologist who examined her client or to cross-examine, and that could not be ignored.
For the dissenting justice, this case was simple: "We have a man on a city street who directed anger and violence at two uniformed police officers — an event that is neither inexplicably irrational nor, sadly, unusual."
Oreste said that due to her client's involvement with the criminal justice system, he has not only served time in prison that he shouldn't have, but it has "been a bar for him to continue with his mental health treatment."
"Once you put someone into the criminal justice system, you create hesitations," Oreste said, noting that at least this decision may mean her client can get off probation, which was set to continue until February 2028. She said he was sentenced to up to 2.5 years in prison for his alleged crimes, with 18 months required to be served.
Representatives for the state did not immediately respond to requests for comments Tuesday.
Justices Rachel E. Hershfang, Christopher P. Hodgens and Paul Hart Smyth sat on the panel for the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
The state is represented by Megan Keane and David D. McGowan of the Suffolk County Massachusetts District Attorney's Office.
Brunette-Silveira is represented by Meghan K. Oreste.
The case is Commonwealth v. Manuel Brunette-Silveira, case number 24-P-1351, in the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
--Editing by Rich Mills.
Update: This story has been updated to include comments from the defendant's attorney.
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