State v. Collier

The defendant appeals his murder conviction. The trial court inadvertently neglected to instruct the jury on self-defense as requested by the defendant. The omission was not realized until the jury sent word that they had reached a verdict after several hours of deliberation. Pursuant to the judge’s suggestion, the defense expressly requested that the jury be reinstructed as to self-defense. The jury was so reinstructed and, after a brief resumption of deliberations, it returned with a verdict of guilty.

There was no motion for a mistrial and no ruling of the court is assigned as error.…