State v. Howard

DELAHANTY, Justice.

After a five-day trial before a jury in Superior Court, Cumberland County, the defendant was convicted of the murder of a Portland prostitute and the attempted murder with a firearm of another. We are not persuaded that any of the defendant’s eight assignments of error require reversal, and accordingly we deny his appeal.

The tawdry tale of sex, drugs, and violence that emerged at the defendant’s trial bears the stamp of a latter-day Dostoevsky. 1974, the defendant, then eighteen years of age, learned that he had contracted Bright’s disease, a fatal kidney disorder. A…