Commonwealth v. Meadows

During the trial of Bernard Meadows for armed robbery, the trial judge on several occasions rebuked or corrected defense counsel. Those expressions of displeasure, the defendant claims on appeal, deprived him of a fair trial. Additional claims of error are that: the judge asked a question of a witness in a manner which suggested that the judge thought the defendant guilty; the judge prematurely cut off a line of cross-examination; and the judge erroneously permitted the introduction in evidence through a police officer of an out-of-court identification of the defendant by the principal…