The State of Washington v. Kha Danh Magers

Summary

The court reversed the Court of Appeals and upheld Magers's convictions for second degree assault and unlawful imprisonment. It held that evidence of Magers's prior domestic violence was admissible to help the jury assess the credibility of Ray, who recanted, and that evidence of prior violence was relevant to whether Ray's fear was objectively reasonable. The court also upheld admission of Ray's statements as excited utterances, the limiting instruction, the restriction on testimony about a possible life sentence, the officer's demeanor testimony, the prosecutor's challenged remarks, and Magers's life-without-parole sentence. C. Johnson, J., dissenting, would have required expert testimony and a carefully recorded balancing analysis before admitting prior-bad-acts evidence to assess a domestic-violence victim's credibility.