A convicted murderer will get a new trial because jurors were not allowed to consider whether he was driven to his homicidal rage by the suspicion his daughter had been molested.
Maurice Lee was convicted of second-degree murder in the July 24, 2002 stabbing death of Melvin Hairston. But a three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals has tossed Lee’s conviction because, the judges said, the jurors were given the wrong instructions.
Numerous witnesses — including Lee’s 11-year-old son — testified that they saw Lee kill Hairston. But Lee stabbed Hairston after Lee’s daughter accused Hairston of sexually abusing her. Jurors should have been given a chance to consider whether Lee was driven to a rage beyond his control, Associate Judge Farrell wrote for the appeals panel in Thursday’s decision.
The confusion arose in part because there are two different ways to consider mitigation, Farrell wrote. Lee’s defense lawyer declined an instruction that would have allowed jurors to consider mitigation and find Lee guilty of manslaughter, a lesser offense. Trial judge Henry F. Greene then ruled that jurors weren’t allowed to consider mitigation at all. It was an error, Farrell wrote.
“Instead the judge rejected Lee’s request, contrary to [recent case law], because no one had requested the manslaughter charge,” Farrell wrote. “Accordingly, we must reverse Lee’s conviction.”
Lee has already been locked up for six years for the crime and Farrell suggested in his brief that the two sides might work out a plea deal. In the meantime, his case returns to D.C.’s lower courts.
