State v. Marks, 297 Kan. 131

Marks convicted of first-degree premeditated murder of Rozeta Marks on Oct 11, 2008.
Proof included premeditation theories: preexisting plan or formed during eight-stab sequence.
Divorce filing by Rozeta weeks before death introduced via friend testimony and texts.
Defense movant sought exclusion of divorce evidence as irrelevant/prejudicial; district court denied.
Open-file discovery policy allowed broader access to discovery; issue raised on personal copies.
Jury questioned definition of instantaneous/premeditation; court reiterated standard instruction; verdict affirmed.
Court held two errors harmless and affirmed conviction.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Prosecutorial misstatement on premeditation	Marks argues ‘during the act’ defies instruction	Marks contends misconduct affected fair trial	No reversible error; harmless under standard
Admission of Rozeta’s divorce filing	Evidence irrelevant without proof of Marks’ knowledge	Evidence relevant to motive/intent; probative	Admissible; not abuse of discretion
Open-file policy and personal copies	Notice entitlement to personal discovery copies	Policy violates 22-3212/22-3213; burden on State	Statutes require defendant copies; error harmless
Cumulative error	Multiple errors together denied fair trial	No cumulative prejudice given strong evidence	No cumulative error; conviction affirmed

State v. Warledo, 286 Kan. 927 (2008) (premeditation may be shown by multiple blows with opportunity to think)
State v. Anthony, 282 Kan. 201 (2006) (sequence of blows can reflect premeditation if opportunity to think exists)
State v. Hall, 292 Kan. 841 (2011) (misstatement when premeditation argued after first trigger pull is reversible error)
State v. Cosby, 293 Kan. 121 (2011) (premeditation factors and inference standards)
State v. Ward, 292 Kan. 541 (2011) (harmless error depends on record when constitutional error)