Shane Harley Essary v. the State of Texas

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding that erroneous instructions were counterbalanced by correct instruc tions so that we could not conclude that “the center of gravity of the provocation instructions was strongly on the side of misstatement”
• burden-shifting language was reversible error and may create substantial risk of miscarriage of justice
• error to instruct \that malice is negated by provocation only if provocation is proved beyond a reasonable doubt\
• error to state that it is Commonwealth’s burden to prove mitigating factors of heat of passion, reasonable provocation or sudden combat; in fact it is Commonwealth’s burden to disprove these factors
• incorrect instruction on burden of proof as to provocation in main charge, then correct instruction, followed by incorrect instruction; erroneous instruction then repeated in supplemental charge
• prejudice created by correct jury instruction sandwiched between two incorrect instructions on same issue

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).