Commonwealth v. McDermott

Summary

The court affirmed the denial of the defendant's second motion for a new trial. It held that the prosecutor committed misconduct through unsupported homophobic insinuations, badgering, and appeals to bias and sympathy, but that the unpreserved misconduct did not create a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice in light of the overwhelming evidence. The court also held that the self-defense instruction claim was barred by direct estoppel, that any error in the provocation instruction was nonprejudicial, and that a juvenile offender's sentence of life with the possibility of parole after fifteen years does not violate the Eighth Amendment or article 26. No separate opinions were filed.