Commonwealth v. Golston

The defendant appeals his conviction of murder in the first degree. Among numerous other errors, he claims that the death of the victim was not properly established. We hold that the trial judge correctly ac cepted the medical concept of “brain death”; alternatively, any error in this respect was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We also overrule the defendant’s other assignments of error, and we afirm his conviction.

There was evidence of the following facts. About 2 p.m. on Sunday, August 24, 1975, the victim, a white man thirty-four years old, came out of a store in Dorchester and walked…