State v. Salary
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder and arson. The district court imposed a hard fifty life sentence after finding that Defendant committed the murder in an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner. The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions but vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing, holding (1) the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s request for a jury instruction on self-defense; (2) any error in denying Defendant’s request for a voluntary manslaughter instruction based on a theory of imperfect self-defense was harmless; (3) the district court erred in admitting Defendant’s recorded confession when Defendant unambiguously invoked his right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation, but the error was harmless; and (4) Defendant’s hard fifty sentence was unconstitutional under Alleyne v. United States because the district court denied Defendant the right to have a jury decide beyond a reasonable doubt all of the facts that may increase the penalty for first-degree murder.
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.