State v. Bethea
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The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendant's judgment of conviction of manslaughter following a jury trial on an indictment for murder, holding that the trial court did not clearly err or abuse its discretion in the proceedings below.
Specifically, the Court held that the trial court (1) acted within its discretion in its conduct of voir dire, which addressed virtually all of Defendant's concerns; (2) did not clearly err in admitting a photograph of the victim with his son and acted within its discretion in overruling Defendant's Rule 403 objection; and (3) did not abuse its discretion by giving a curative instruction after the prosecutor misstated the evidence during closing arguments because the curative instruction adequately remedied any prejudice to Defendant.
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