Henderson v. Kibbe

Respondent is in petitioner’s custody pursuant to a conviction for second-degree murder. The question presented to us is whether the New York State trial judge’s failure to instruct the jury on the issue of causation was constitutional error requiring a Federal District Court to grant habeas corpus relief. Disagreeing with a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, we hold that it was not.

On the evening of December 30, 1970, respondent and his codefendant encountered a thoroughly intoxicated man named Stafford in a bar in Rochester, N. Y.1 After observing Stafford display…