Commonwealth v. Martin
Annotate this Case
The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendant's conviction of murder in the first degree and the denial of his motion for a new trial and declined to exercise its authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278E to reduce Defendant's conviction to murder in the second degree, holding that Defendant was not entitled to relief on any of his allegations of error.
Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree on the theory of felony-murder. Defendant filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) Defendant's motion for a new trial was correctly denied because Defendant was not prejudiced by counsel's ineffective assistance; (2) this Court declines to extend the reach of the Court's holding in Commonwealth v. Brown, 477 Mass. 805 (2017), to Defendant's case; and (3) trial judge erred when he declined Defendant's request that the jury be instructed on the elements of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, but the error was not prejudicial in the context of the judge's other instructions.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.