State v. Washington

Summary

The court affirmed the convictions despite concluding that the trial court improperly instructed the jury on combat by agreement. The instructional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the verdict turned on whether the defendant or the victim fired first, not on the legal subtleties of self-defense. The court declined to review the defendant's unpreserved postarrest-silence claim and pandemic-based new-trial claim because the record was inadequate, and it rejected the preserved prosecutorial-impropriety claims.