State v. Backus
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Defendant directly appealed his convictions for premeditated first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated robbery. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's convictions, holding (1) the district court erred in denying Defendant's request for a lesser included offense instruction on second-degree murder without first analyzing the propriety of giving the instruction, but the error was harmless; (2) the district court's error in failing to give an Allen-type jury instruction was not reversible; (3) the district court's denial of Defendant's new trial motion was not an abuse of discretion; (4) the district exercised its discretion in an appropriate manner in admitting certain photographs into evidence; (5) the district court did not err in finding that the evidence failed to establish a reason to believe that Defendant was mentally retarded; and (6) the cumulative effect of the errors was not so great as to require reversal.
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