State of Maine v. Thomas G. Bonfanti

Summary

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Bonfanti’s murder convictions, holding that any error in admitting his post‑arrest statement was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and that the trial court’s inclusion of the third‑party‑provocation self‑defense exception, though unnecessary, did not constitute obvious error. The court relied on overwhelming independent evidence of guilt and found the jury instructions, taken as a whole, accurate.