State v. Baker

BURNETT, Judge.

It was a shotgun blast in the early morning that killed Merardo Rodriguez. As he lay on the floor of his house, his wife placed a pillow beneath his head and watched him die. The wife’s father, William Baker, stood a few feet away, in his night clothes, holding the shotgun. He leaned the gun against a wall, went upstairs to dress, and waited for the police to arrive.

From this tragic denouement of family conflict came a prosecution for first degree murder. Baker never denied the killing. He claimed that Rodriguez had been drunk, had threatened him, and that the gun was fired in…