Commonwealth v. Brown
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The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendant's convictions of murder in the first degree, carrying a firearm without a license, and possession of a firearm without a firearm identification card, holding that there was no error warranting a new trial, nor was there any reason to exercise the Court's extraordinary authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E to order a new trial or to reduce the degree of guilt.
Specifically, the Supreme Judicial Court held (1) the evidence was sufficient to support Defendant's murder conviction; (2) the prosecution's introduction of character and prior bad act evidence did not sufficiently influence the grand jury's decision to indict to require dismissal of the indictments; (3) there was no abuse of discretion in the judge's instruction on eyewitness identification; (4) the prosecutor's questions to the venire did not result in a biased jury; and (5) while several of the prosecutor's remarks during closing argument were improper, the improprieties did not warrant a new trial.
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