Commonwealth v. Smith

On July 29, 1965, a five year old girl residing in Middleboro was brutally sexually assaulted and murdered. The defendant was indicted on a charge of murder in the first degree and, in circumstances that we shall describe, ultimately found guilty by a jury in April, 1968. Thirty years later, the defendant makes three requests: that we reevaluate the judge’s charge on *246reasonable doubt in light of changes in the law since his conviction; that we consider whether the jurors were coerced into reaching their decision because the judge gave a premature and unrequested charge like the one given in…