Commonwealth v. Ng
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The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's conviction of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation and declined to exercise its authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 33E either to reduce the verdict or to grant Defendant a new trial, holding that Defendant was not entitled to relief on his allegations of error.
Specifically, the Supreme Judicial Court held (1) Defendant's absence from substantive sidebar conferences was error on the part of the trial court, but the error was harmless; (2) the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in ruling that a challenged statement was inadmissible hearsay and failed to satisfy one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule; (3) the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting expert testimony on Defendant's military record; (4) the closure of the courtroom during jury selection did not violate Defendant's constitutional right to a public trial; (5) Defendant received effective assistance of counsel; and (6) there was no reason for the Court to exercise its discretion to reduce Defendant's conviction to murder in the second degree.
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