State v. Markus Matthews

OPINION

Justice GOLDBERG,

for the Court.

On the night of May 6, 2009, three men savagely attacked and robbed Cesar Lopez (Lopez or complainant), who had unwittingly arrived at an abandoned house to deliver pizza. The attackers made off with about $20. Several days later, a chance encounter with one of the robbers led to his arrest, and that perpetrator implicated the defendant, Markus Matthews (defendant), in this brutal crime. The defendant was tried and convicted by a jury of a single count of first-degree robbery. He now appeals that conviction, assigning an array of errors to the trial…