Commonwealth v. Maldonado

Having been convicted of illegal possession of a firearm and of being an armed career criminal, Luis Maldonado appealed from the denial of his motion to suppress the firearm which prompted his arrest, the allowance by the trial judge of two Commonwealth peremptory challenges striking the only potential black jurors from the jury panel, and the denial of his motion for a required finding on the armed career criminal indictment. The Appeals Court reversed the convictions, concluding that the Commonwealth’s exercise of one of its *461peremptory challenges was not race neutral and should have been…