Court Opinion

ID: 9732875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:41:07.742558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:44.233965
License: Public Domain

Peterson, Justice
(concurring specially).
The evidence undoubtedly supports a verdict that defendant, without premeditation, intentionally caused decedent’s death *245(murder in the second degree, Minn. St. 609.19). Had the issue been submitted, however, the jury might have found that defendant’s act was “in the heat of passion provoked by such words or acts of another as would provoke a person of ordinary self-control under like circumstances” (manslaughter in the first degree, Minn. St. 609.20 [1]). There was testimony that the decedent struck defendant and variously called him “a black bastard” and a “black son of a bitch.” It is cavalier to dismiss this evidence of provocation as “minimal” and insufficient “as a matter of law.” Cf. State v. Boyce, 284 Minn. 242, 254, 170 N. W. (2d) 104, 112.
It is nevertheless clear, both from the thrust of defendant’s evidence and his counsel’s colloquy with the court concerning submission of instructions, that defendant, as a matter of strategy, elected to go to the jury on an “all-or-nothing” verdict, waiving specific instructions as to causing death in the heat of passion. State v. Keenan, 289 Minn. 318, 184 N. W. (2d) 410. This, like other trial tactics of defendant’s retained counsel, may, with benefit of hindsight, have been mistaken, but I agree that it does not constitute reversible error. I accordingly concur in the result.