California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Lucero, 245 Cal.Rptr. 185, 44 Cal.3d 1006, 750 P.2d 1342 (Cal. 1988):
Defendant contends that under this court's decision in People v. Sears (1970) 2 Cal.3d 180, 84 Cal.Rptr. 711, 465 P.2d 847, the trial court committed reversible error by refusing to give the following requested instruction: "Evidence of premeditation and deliberation falls into three (3) basic categories: (1) Facts showing prior planning activity [p] (2) Facts of prior activity suggesting motive [p] (3) Facts about the manner of the killing which suggests a preconceived design. [p] In order to sustain a first degree murder verdict there must be evidence of all three (3) types of facts or otherwise extremely strong evidence of prior planning (type 1) or evidence or [sic ] motive (type 2) in conjunction with either prior planning (type 1) or manner of killing (type 3)." 6
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