Commonwealth v. Brown

These murder appeals bring to us numerous assignments of error. We reverse the convictions because the judge’s “dynamite charge” to the jury went beyond that approved in Commonwealth v. Tuey, 8 Cush. 1 (1851). Cf. Allen v. United States, 164 U. S. 492, 501 (1890). We also pass on the questions likely to recur at a new trial.

The victim, Allen Donaldson, also known as Hakim A. Jamal, lived in a third-floor apartment in Roxbury with five other people. They were all in the apartment about 11 p.m. on May 1, 1973, when four or five men stormed into the apartment, shot the victim three, four or five…