Commonwealth v. Desiderio
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The Supreme Judicial Court reduced Defendant's convictions of armed robbery while masked to unarmed robbery and vacated the judgment on the conviction of armed home invasion and set aside the verdict, holding that an instructional error created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice.
Defendant was convicted, after a jury trial, of armed home invasion and armed robbery while masked. While the indictments were based on a theory of joint venture the jury were not instructed that the Commonwealth must prove that Defendant knew that at least one coventurer was armed and at least one coventurer was armed and masked. The Supreme Court held (1) the failure to provide these instructions was error; and (2) the error left the Court with a serious doubt whether the result of the trial might have been different had the jury been correctly instructed.
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