Commonwealth v. Long

The defendant appeals from his conviction of second degree murder on an indictment charging first degree murder. The defendant’s most serious contention on appeal is that it was error for the prosecutor to ask the defendant, on cross-examination, in a long series of questions described below, whether he had heard particular testimony of various witnesses. The successive inquiries we regard as improper and we reject the contention of the Commonwealth that the manner of this prosecutor’s questioning was merely a permissible technique to focus a witness’s attention on particular facts that the…