Commonwealth v. Trippi

On November 11, 1928, the defendant, twenty-two years of age, was serving a sentence of fifteen to eighteen years in the Massachusetts State prison. Armed with a loaded revolver and thirty or forty extra cartridges, in an attempt to escape from the prison he shot and killed Frederick Pfluger, a guard of the institution. The defendant was indicted and convicted of murder in the first degree.

The first assignment of error relates to the ruling of the trial judge respecting certain questions propounded to an expert in psychiatry. Counsel for the defendant asked the following question: “Will you…