Commonwealth v. Perez

In 1973, a jury convicted Perez of murder in the first degree, among other offenses. The judge sentenced him to life imprisonment pursuant to G. L. c. 265, § 2. This court affirmed his conviction in Commonwealth v. Perez, 390 Mass. 308 (1983). Thirty years after his conviction, Perez now claims that his sentence was improper because the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) — decided the year before Perez was convicted and eleven years before this court reviewed and affirmed his conviction — nullified in its entirety the statute under which he was…