Commonwealth v. Garcia
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree on theories of extreme atrocity or cruelty and felony-murder, based on the underlying felonies of home invasion and armed or assaultive burglary, and five related offenses. The jury did not specify whether they found Defendant guilty of the offenses as a principal or as a joint venturer. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) the evidence was sufficient to establish that Defendant shared the intent required to support his convictions; (2) there was no abuse of discretion in the manner in which the judge limited the scope of the cross-examination and the redirect examination of one of the Commonwealth’s witnesses; (3) the trial judge did not err in denying Defendant’s request for an instruction on murder in the second degree based on an uncharged offense or an instruction on intervening cause; and (4) counsel was not ineffective for failing to object when the judge instructed that accident was not a defense to the killing.
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