Commonwealth v. Anestal

The defendant was convicted by a Superior Court jury of murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation in the 2003 stabbing death of her boy friend, Baby Petitry. Before us are the defendant’s consolidated appeals from both her conviction and the denial of her motion for a new trial. We conclude that, because on multiple occasions, over objection, the trial judge erroneously allowed the Commonwealth to introduce highly prejudicial evidence of the defendant’s prior bad acts, and because the judge later declined to provide an instruction as to the excessive use of force in…