Commonwealth v. Walsh

The defendant appeals from jury convictions of the murder in the first degree of Robert Sweeney and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon on Sweeney, both on a joint venture theory, and from jury convictions of mayhem, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery on Evan Doherty. The defendant raises numerous issues on appeal, the chief of which is the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant the jury’s findings that the defendant was a joint venturer with John Alkins in Alkins’s attack with a knife on Sweeney thereby causing Sweeney’s death. That…