Commonwealth v. Burns

Armstrong, CJ.

Appealing from his December, 1996, second degree murder conviction and his conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm, the defendant, Lee Andrew Burns, challenges the prosecutor’s closing argument, the admission of evidence of an unrelated shooting as bearing on his motive, and the jury instructions.

JamiyI Gross, the Commonwealth’s key witness at trial, testified that on January 4, 1995, around 3:30 p.m., he and the victim, fifteen year old Ronell Adams, decided to walk to the home of Chris Dunston, Adams’s half-brother. Dunston lived in the Warren Gardens area of the…