State v. Patterson
Annotate this CaseA jury found Defendant guilty of the first degree murder of his girlfriend. Defendant was sentenced to death. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's conviction and sentence, holding, among other things, that the trial court did not err by (1) precluding Defendant from asking prospective jurors what factors they would find aggravating or mitigating; (2) requiring Defendant to mention mitigation in a hypothetical question he asked; (3) striking for cause a juror who worked for the public defender's office and had expressed strong opposition to the death penalty; (4) denying Defendant's request for a mistrial based on prosecutorial misconduct; and (5) denying Defendant's requested jury instruction on the lesser included offense of manslaughter.
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