State of Minnesota v. Timothy Lee Heller

Summary

The court affirmed Heller’s conviction for first-degree domestic abuse murder. It held that any venue-instruction error was harmless, that isolated acts against multiple household members may establish a past pattern of domestic abuse, and that decades-old abuse evidence was admissible because it formed part of a continuous pattern. The court also held that lethality-factor testimony was improperly admitted but harmless, and that the excluded alternative-perpetrator evidence was properly excluded.