Williams v. State

T1 Williams requested Second Degree Murder instructions at trial1 As the trial court's denial of Williams's request and refusal to so instruct the jury constituted reversible error, his Judgment and Sentence should be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.

T2 In Hogan v. Gibson, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals was critical of applying a "sufficiency of the evidence for the greater offense" standard to assess the necessity of lesser-included instructions.2 Mindful of Ho*734gan, the majority opinion correctly states that lesser-included instructions such as those sought by Williams…