Commonwealth v. Burnett

The defendant appeals from his convictions of robbery, assault and battery, and threatening to commit assault and battery. The Appeals Court held that the Commonwealth impermissibly exercised one of its peremptory challenges and reversed. 36 Mass. App. Ct. 1 (1994). We granted the Commonwealth’s application for further appellate review, and now conclude, for substantially the same reasons as stated in the opinion of the Appeals Court, that *770the Commonwealth improperly exercised a peremptory challenge. We reverse the judgments of the Superior Court.

Of the five indisputably black individuals in…