State v. Thompson

NEUMAN, Justice.

Two-year-old Devon Simmons died after his mother’s roommate, defendant Owens Thompson, slammed him into the corner of a bed’s wooden box spring, lacerating his liver. The principal question on Thompson’s appeal from his conviction of first-degree murder is whether he was entitled to a more exacting jury instruction defining the phrase “extreme indifference to human life” as an element of the crime. Thompson also challenges the propriety of the court’s instruction on malice aforethought. Finding no error warranting reversal, we affirm.

A jury could have found the following…