State v. Stevenson, 297 Kan. 49

David Stevenson was convicted by a jury of premeditated first-degree murder of his father, Walter.
State's theory: Stevenson murdered Walter to gain control of a family farm and trust amid a dispute.
Physical evidence included blood stains matched to Walter, blood under oil, hammer blood, and coroner’s opinions about timing of injuries.
Defense presented experts arguing injuries and blood patterns were due to accidental hydraulic failure and lack of opportunity to kill.
Stevenson was sentenced to life with no parole for 25 years.
On appeal, Stevenson challenged prosecutorial conduct, a requested expanded reasonable-doubt instruction, and a specific jury instruction about disposition of the case.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Prosecutorial misconduct during voir dire	Stevenson argues wheel-of-doubt analogy misdefined doubt.	Stevenson contends analogy diluted burden and biased jurors.	Not improper; analogy did not define burden and did not prejudice.
Expanded reasonable-doubt instruction	Expanded instruction necessary due to voir dire discussion of doubt.	No need for extra instruction when pattern instruction suffices.	Not legally appropriate; no error to refuse expanded instruction.
Jury instruction No. 5 diluting presumption of innocence	No, instruction diluted innocence by emphasizing disposition of case later.	No conflict with presumption; two-option framing is proper when read with other instructions.	No error; reading with Instruction No. 7 preserved burden and presumption.

State v. Burnett, 293 Kan. 840 (2012) (two-step prosecutorial-misconduct standard)
State v. King, 288 Kan. 333 (2009) (plain-error review in misconduct claims)
State v. Douglas, 230 Kan. 744 (1982) (no definition of reasonable doubt required)
State v. Mack, 228 Kan. 83 (1980) (no separate reasonable-doubt instruction needed when PIK 52.02 given)
State v. Ellmaker, 289 Kan. 1132 (2009) (comprehensive approach to jury-instruction review)
State v. Plummer, 295 Kan. 156 (2012) (unlimited then harmless-error framework for instruction review)
State v. Raskie, 293 Kan. 906 (2012) (guilty/not-guilty framing understood with proper burden instructions)
State v. Yardley, 267 Kan. 37 (1999) (approval of PIK 3d 51.10 instruction as proper)
State v. Osburn, 211 Kan. 248 (1973) (precedent on burden and jury instructions)
People v. Serrano, No. G037986, 2008 WL 82838 (Cal. App. 2008) (Wheel of Fortune analogy considered permissive, non-precedential)