Avent v. Com.

Summary

The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed Cardell Lamont Avent's convictions for first-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, holding that his Arizona statements were voluntary, his Batson challenge failed for lack of pretext evidence, and the trial court properly excluded the victim's alleged racist statements as too remote in time and irrelevant. The court held that Avent forfeited self-defense, and was not entitled to a self-defense instruction, because he pursued the victim upstairs while carrying a sawed-off shotgun after the initial altercation ended and used excessive force against a prone, wounded, unarmed man; it also found ample evidence of premeditation despite his intoxication and of malice from his deliberate use of a deadly weapon. The court upheld the denials of a mistrial based on penalty-phase prosecutorial argument and of a new trial based on after-discovered evidence of the victim's decade-old domestic violence, which was unlikely to produce an opposite result. No separate opinions were filed.