New Hampshire v. King
Annotate this CaseDefendant Marianne King was convicted by jury on one count of theft by unauthorized taking. At trial, defendant argued that it was error to instruct the jury that “if there is a conflict between witnesses who offer direct evidence concerning certain facts, you must decide which witness to believe.” She argued that this instruction, which, for the purposes of this appeal (“the Germain direct-evidence instruction”), was “misleading” because it conflicted with the State’s burden to prove the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court overruled defendant’s objection to the instruction. After review, the Supreme Court made a slight adjustment to the wording of the instruction that the trial court repeated verbatim, but otherwise affirmed the judgment and conviction.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.