Williams v. State

Summary

The court affirmed Williams’s convictions, holding that the trial court plainly erred by omitting an express instruction that the State had to disprove justification beyond a reasonable doubt, but that Williams failed to show the omission affected the outcome. The court also assumed counsel may have performed deficiently by not further investigating or presenting community-reputation evidence about the victim’s violence, but found no reasonable probability of a different result because substantial evidence of the victim’s violent character was already admitted.