Commonwealth v. Bowler

O’Connor,

J. On November 19, 1986, a jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the second degree. The defendant appealed from his conviction, and we transferred the case here on our own initiative. The defendant argues on appeal that the trial judge’s instructions to the jury concerning the significance of the defendant’s intoxication at the time of the crime were erroneous in light of our decision in March, 1987, in Commonwealth v. Grey, 399 Mass. 469 (1987). We believe that, if the defendant had raised the intoxication issue at trial, he reasonably could argue on appeal that he is…