The appellant appealed a second-degree murder conviction arising from a fatal stabbing following a street-level drug transaction and chase.
He argued the verdict was unreasonable and that the jury charge was deficient on circumstantial evidence, cross-racial identification, and the included offence of manslaughter.
The court held that, although an explicit cross-racial identification instruction would have been appropriate, the identification charge as a whole was sufficient, the circumstantial evidence instruction did not misstate the burden of proof when read in context, and there was no air of reality to manslaughter given the depth and nature of the stab wound.
The appeal was dismissed.
