Horton v. State

Summary

The court affirmed Horton’s convictions and sentences for malice murder, first-degree arson, and related offenses. It held that the evidence supported the concealment-of-death conviction and that arson did not merge with that offense; it also rejected Horton’s jury-contamination, jury-instruction, prosecutorial-misconduct, and ineffective-assistance claims. The court concluded that any instructional errors were not plain error, the alleged prosecutorial misconduct was unpreserved and unsupported, and counsel’s challenged decisions were reasonable or nonprejudicial.