Commonwealth v. Lopes

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendant’s conviction of murder in the first degree on the theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty and declined to exercise its authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E to reduce to set aside the verdict. The court held (1) the trial judge did not err by failing to find that the Commonwealth’s peremptory challenges of prospective jurors were improper; (2) the trial judge did not err by allowing evidence of Defendant’s gang affiliation and the victim’s brother’s knowledge of neighborhood gang activity; (3) the trial judge did not err by precluding Defendant from cross-examining a police officer witness on prior misconduct; and (4) there was no reversible error arising from the prosecutor’s closing argument. View "Commonwealth v. Lopes" on Justia Law