State of West Virginia v. Victoria Louk

Summary

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reversed Victoria Louk's voluntary manslaughter conviction and remanded because police obtained her statement after she had repeatedly invoked her right to counsel, violating Edwards v. Arizona and state law requiring a total cessation of police-defendant contact once counsel is requested. The court rejected her remaining claims: the manslaughter verdict was not inconsistent with her acquittal for assaulting the second victim; exclusion of the decedent's violent-character evidence and of post-crime events was within the trial court's discretion; murder instructions were proper where provocation was disputed; the malice-inference instruction was a permissible inference rather than an unconstitutional burden-shifting presumption; the refused defense instructions were repetitious; and denial of grand jury minutes was proper absent particularized need.