People v. Mason

The defendants, Robert Mason and Thomas Harrison, appeal their conviction by a jury of burning a dwelling house 1 and preparing to burn a dwelling house. 2 They charge that the prosecutor committed reversible error when in his closing argument he referred to the defendant Mason as a “loan shark,” and they allege that the verdict is against the great weight of the evidence. Further, they ask for a new trial on the basis of an affidavit by Helena Fambro, a prosecution witness, that she made untrue statements at the trial..On Valentine’s day, February 14, 1964, a fire, begun in the attic,…