Commonwealth v. Lopes

*1129The defendant, Crisostomo Lopes, pulled the fourteen year old victim off a motorized scooter and held him, while the codefendant, a juvenile, shot him multiple times at close range. The victim succumbed to a gunshot wound to his chest shortly thereafter. After a jury trial, both the defendant and his codefendant were convicted of murder in the first degree on the theories of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty.1

In his appeal, the defendant claims that reversal of his conviction is required because the judge erred by: (1) failing to find that the Commonwealth's peremptory…