State v. Nickels

Summary

The court affirmed Nickels' convictions for first degree murder and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony. It held that the evidence did not require removal of the duty-to-retreat language from the self-defense instruction, and that the unpreserved instructional arguments did not constitute plain error. The court also rejected Nickels' evidentiary and ineffective-assistance claims because the character evidence was ultimately admitted, the omitted evidence would not have created a reasonable probability of a different result, and the trial references to “murder” were not improper or prejudicial.