People of Michigan v. Mary Lou Bigford, 333493

Defendant Mary Lou Bigford was tried for first-degree premeditated murder, carrying a weapon with unlawful intent, and felony-firearm after Lawrence Howard was shot six times in an apartment-complex parking lot.
The victim was the father of defendant’s grandchild; there had been allegations (investigated but not substantiated) that he sexually abused the child.
The case received local media attention (newspaper, radio, TV, and social media); the trial court conducted extensive individual voir dire and there were two mistrials before the conviction at the third trial.
Multiple prospective jurors had heard about the case, but only a small fraction had formed opinions or said they could not set opinions aside; the court denied a motion to change venue.
Defendant requested a jury instruction on defense of others (claiming imminent threat to the child); the court refused and instructed on the charged offenses.
After a mistrial caused in part by prosecutorial discovery error (lab report timing) and voir dire issues, the prosecutor retried the case; defendant argued double jeopardy on appeal.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Change of venue due to pretrial publicity	Prosecution: publicity did not create presumptive prejudice; voir dire and juror oaths sufficed	Bigford: publicity was extensive, polarizing, and prevented seating an impartial jury	Denied: no abuse of discretion; publicity not so massive or inflammatory and voir dire showed few fixed opinions
Availability of defense-of-others instruction	Prosecution: facts did not support imminence required for deadly-force defense	Bigford: shot victim to protect grandchild from sexual assault; instruction was warranted	Denied: no reasonable basis to conclude an imminent sexual assault was occurring or about to occur
Double jeopardy from retrial after mistrial	Prosecution: mistrial resulted from innocent/negligent errors and defense moved or consented to mistrial, so retrial permissible	Bigford: retrial violated protection against being tried twice for same offense	Denied: no plain error; objective record shows no intentional prosecutorial provocation and defense’s conduct allowed inference of consent
Waiver of venue objection by failing to exhaust peremptories	Prosecution: participation in jury selection amounted to waiver	Bigford: preserving objection despite not exhausting peremptories; exhaustion was pointless	Held: No waiver; participation without expressing satisfaction did not waive the change-of-venue claim; nevertheless claim fails on the merits

Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717 (juror impartiality standard; jurors need not be totally ignorant of the facts)
Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 (extreme pretrial publicity creating prejudicial atmosphere)
Estes v. Texas, 381 U.S. 532 (media presence causing trial disruption relevant to prejudice)
Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723 (televised confession causing presumptive prejudice)
People v. DeLisle, 202 Mich. App. 658 (presumption jurors honor oath; need proof of actual juror partiality)
People v. Dawson, 431 Mich. 234 (when retrial is barred by double jeopardy; intentional prosecutorial provocation vs. innocent error)
People v. Riddle, 467 Mich. 116 (defendant entitled to properly instructed jury; self-defense elements)
People v. Heflin, 434 Mich. 482 (self-defense justifiable homicide: honest and reasonable belief of imminent danger)
People v. Guajardo, 300 Mich. App. 26 (threats of future harm are not imminence for self-defense)