Harrison Berrier v. Charles E. Egeler, Warden, State Prison of Southern Michigan at Jackson

I respectfully dissent.

I fully agree with the majority that the instructions given by the state trial court were confusing and deficient. Were this matter before us on direct review from a trial court within our own system, there is little doubt in my mind that the exercise of the court’s supervisory powers to reverse would be justified. We act here, however, within the narrower confines of federal ha-beas corpus law.

Like federal law,1 Michigan law requires that, when self-defense is injected into a trial by the introduction or existence of some evidence supporting the claim, the burden is…