Commonwealth v. Gilliard

A spontaneous melee late at night in January of 1990 on Shawmut Avenue in Roxbury, involving a large number of young people, mostly female, resulted in the fatal stabbing of seventeen year old Yolanda Carter. After a jury trial in Superior Court, the defendant was found guilty of Carter’s second degree murder. The foreman’s gratuitous notation on the verdict slip indicated that the defendant’s guilt was as a joint venturer, not as a principal. On appeal, the defendant contends (1) that the judge should have allowed her pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment because she appeared before the…