Commonwealth v. McInerney

The defendant was indicted for the crime of murder in the first degree of Cynthia M. Hartford (victim). The case was submitted to the jury with instructions by the trial judge that they could return one of four alternate verdicts: not guilty, guilty of murder in the first degree, guilty of murder in the second degree, or guilty of manslaughter. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, whereupon the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for life, the sentence to be served from and after a life sentence which he was then serving.1 The case is now before us on the…