State v. Nichols, 1 CA-CR 16-0070

Background

In Feb 2015 Nichols forced entry into a South Phoenix home at ~2 a.m.; he attacked a man and a woman who were protecting a sleeping infant. The man struck Nichols in the head with a baseball bat; Nichols later collapsed and was hospitalized. Both residents sustained injuries.
Nichols was charged with burglary in the second degree and two counts of aggravated assault; a jury convicted him and found multiple aggravating circumstances.
At sentencing the court found Nichols violated probation from a 2012 threatening-and-intimidating conviction, revoked that probation, and used prior felonies to enhance sentences; total effective sentence was consecutive to the 2012 sentence.
Nichols appealed, asserting prosecutorial misconduct (during voir dire, opening, and closing), improper jury instructions limiting self-defense and declaring the victim’s force justified, and cumulative error.
The Court of Appeals reviewed unobjected-to trial comments for fundamental/prejudicial error and considered whether instructions on self-defense and justification were legally erroneous under the facts.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Nichols)	Held
Prosecutorial voir dire questions	Questions probed juror bias against sympathy-based nullification and were proper to identify biased jurors	Questions improperly previewed evidence and conditioned jurors to a particular view	Court held voir dire questions were proper; aimed to identify inability to follow law; no prejudice shown
Use of 9-1-1 call and victim photos in opening	State: reasonable preview of evidence with good-faith basis for admissibility	Nichols: prosecutor dominated trial and prejudiced jury	Court held use in opening was proper—govt may reference evidence in opening if reasonably expected to be admissible
Closing argument content (fear appeals, misstatements, vouching)	State: wide latitude in closing; arguments were reasonable inferences from evidence	Nichols: prosecutor appealed to fear/sympathy, misstated law/facts, vouched for witnesses, belittled aggravation hearing	Most remarks were within permissible latitude; one comment (“song and dance”) was improper but harmless given instructions and lack of record showing jury ignored them
Jury instructions on self-defense and justification	State: self-defense applies only to assault counts; justification instruction appropriate because homeowners’ use of force was contested	Nichols: limiting self-defense to assault implied no defense to burglary and the justification instruction unduly emphasized an evidentiary point	Court held no error: self-defense not a defense to burglary under facts; justification instruction was warranted and harmless given defense concessions

Key Cases Cited

State v. Henderson, 210 Ariz. 561 (establishes standard for fundamental error review when defenses/objections are not raised at trial)
State v. Morris, 215 Ariz. 324 (defines prosecutorial misconduct standard and required showing of prejudice)
Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719 (voir dire purpose: exclude jurors who cannot be fair)
State v. McMurtrey, 136 Ariz. 93 (limits on voir dire/preconditioning jurors)
State v. Prince, 226 Ariz. 516 (caution against jurors precommitting based on hypothetical facts)
State v. Pedroza-Perez, 240 Ariz. 114 (permissible reference to specific evidence in opening when proponent has good-faith basis)
State v. Goudeau, 239 Ariz. 421 (function and scope of opening statements)
State v. King, 180 Ariz. 268 (prosecutorial vouching doctrines)
State v. Newell, 212 Ariz. 389 (presumption that jurors follow instructions)