Stevenson v. State

Appellant, Kalilah Romika Stevenson, was convicted of first degree assault 1 by a jury in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County, after her request for a jury instruction “on hot blooded response to mutual combat” was denied. That ruling was erroneous, she claims, because it denied her what Maryland law should permit. Such an instruction, she points out, is allowed in murder cases to reduce that offense to manslaughter. Why then, she asks, should it not be permitted in first degree assault cases, to reduce that crime to second degree assault. To allow that instruction in murder but not assault…