State v. Burns

Defendant appeals a life sentence. The case must be retried because the trial court erred when it misdirected the jury by an oral instruction given after the jury began deliberations. The instruction may have coerced a verdict. There is no basis to determine that it did not coerce a verdict.

The trial involved two charges. Count I, robbery first degree, “in that on September 7, 1985 in the County of Jefferson, State of Missouri, the defendant forcibly stole U.S. Currency in the possession of Henry Cullen, and in the course thereof defendant caused serious physical injury to Henry Cullen.”…