Sanders v. State

MAXWELL, J., for the Court:

¶ 1. A jury found Keith Duran Sanders guilty of murder after he killed Darryl Baxstrum outside a bar in Philadelphia, Mississippi. On appeal, Sanders argues the circuit court erred in refusing his proposed heat-of-passion manslaughter instruction and that his lawyer was constitutionally deficient. Because there was no evidence Sanders responded to immediate and reasonable provocation when he shot and killed Baxstrum, we find refusal of the manslaughter instruction was proper. Thus, we affirm his murder conviction. Since the record is inadequate to decide Sanders’s…