State v. Addison, 161 N.H. 300

Defendant Addison was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to commit criminal threatening and reckless conduct related to a Roy Drive shooting in Manchester.
The Roy Drive shooting occurred less than 24 hours before the murder of Manchester Police Officer Briggs; the same weapon was allegedly used in both cases.
Media tied Addison to Officer Briggs’s murder, and the State later used Addison’s Roy Drive convictions as aggravating factors in Briggs’s death-penalty case.
The trial court instructed venire with a VandeBogart-type warning about the Briggs case; defense argued this violated due process and fairness.
The court found the VandeBogart instruction did not violate due process and discussed voir dire discretion and related precedents.
The defendant challenged the jury-selection process under RSA 500-A:6, claiming lack of true randomness; the court found no statutory violation.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the VandeBogart instruction violated due process	Addison argued it tainted the venire and prejudiced the defense	Addison contends the instruction improperly disclosed the Briggs case and biased jurors	No due process violation; instruction within court’s discretion and permissible to address pretrial publicity
Whether the VandeBogart instruction was properly tailored given intertwined facts	Addison claims heightened concern due to nexus between Roy Drive and Briggs cases	Addison argues factual similarity increased prejudice	Instruction appropriate; nexus did not violate constitutional rights
Whether RSA 500-A:6 random juror selection was satisfied	Addison contends the selection method failed randomization per the statute	Addison argues equal-odds randomness should have been ensured	Method did not violate the statutory randomness requirement; no substantial noncompliance

State v. Addison, 160 N.H. 493 (2010) (upholds VandeBogart-type voir dire and due-process considerations)
State v. Goupil, 154 N.H. 208 (2006) (right to fair and impartial jury; juror impartiality presumption and voir dire discretion)
State v. Rideout, 143 N.H. 363 (1999) (impartiality presumed; trial court assesses indifference during voir dire)
State v. Weir, 138 N.H. 671 (1994) (juror impartiality and removal when not indifferent)
State v. Wamala, 158 N.H. 583 (2009) (voir dire discretion governing juror impartiality)
State v. Gullick, 120 N.H. 99 (1980) (premise of impartial jury is determined on voir dire)
State v. Martel, 141 N.H. 599 (1997) (random jury selection policy and cross-section goals)
In re United States, 426 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2005) (equal-odds randomness not required by JSSA; fairness acceptable)
United States v. Butts, 514 F. Supp. 1225 (D. Fla. 1981) (statutory randomness not strict statistical randomness)
Azania v. State, 778 N.E.2d 1253 (Ind. 2002) (impartial system acceptable even without perfect randomness)