We discern no error in any of the matters raised by the defendant. We granted the defendant's application for direct appellate review. The defendant also argues that the judge who decided her motion for a new trial improperly denied the motion. Represented by new counsel on appeal, the defendant argues that the trial judge erred in (1) submitting the case to the jury on the theory of joint venture and (2) instructing the jury on the elements of second degree felonymurder and on malice. He testified against her at her trial under an agreement with the Commonwealth that allowed him to enter a plea of guilty to murder in the second degree. The defendant's boy friend, Barry Loring, had also been indicted for murder in the first degree. A jury in the Superior Court considered that charge and convicted her of murder in the second degree. Pike, was charged with murder in the first degree. Judith Ellen Pietras, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for direct The case was tried before John F Murphy, Jr, J., and a motion for a new trial, filed on April 28, 1997, was heard by Bertha INDICTMENT found and returned in the Superior Court Department on November 1, 1994. The judge did not err in denying the defendant's motions for reconsideration of the denial of new trial and to expand the record, In a proceeding on a criminal defendant's motion for a new trial, Plainly wrong in disbelieving a criminal defendant's testimony at a hearing on a motion for new trial to the effect that the defendant had suffered from battered woman syndrome at the time of the crime, and in concluding that, if the defendant had been abused, such evidence was available at the time of her trial and was not newly discovered. There was no basis in the record to conclude that a judge was ĭiscussion of battered woman syndrome and cases in which evidence Were correct in all respects, and any language similar to disapproved "frame of mind" language could not have affected the jury's determination.
Īt a murder trial, the judge's instructions to the jury on malice
The evidence at a murder trial supported findings that theĭefendant committed the felonies of breaking and entering in the daytime with intent to commit a felony and larceny of a motor vehicle with conscious disregard of the risk to the victim's life, and that the felonies were independent of the murder the felony-murder rule was applicable in the circumstances. 212 FebruApFranklin County Present: MARSHALL, C.J., ABRAMS, LYNCH, GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, & COWIN, JJ.Īt the trial of a murder indictment, the evidence warranted theįinding that the victim's death was proximately caused by the defendant's acts during the commission of underlying felonies, and the judge's instructions on proximate cause were proper and sufficient.
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