## Facts

- During a confrontation on St. Croix on August 8, 1990, Henry D. Knight repeatedly struck Andreas Miller in the head with a pistol.
- While Knight was hitting Miller with the gun, the gun discharged and killed Miller.
- Knight admitted grabbing and striking Miller with the firearm but maintained the discharge was unintentional.
- An eyewitness observed the struggle and would have opined that the shot was “accidental”; the witness also observed that Knight did not point the gun at Miller and did not threaten to shoot him.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court properly precluded an insanity defense where notice was filed only a few working days before trial without good cause.
2. Whether excluding an eyewitness’s lay opinion that the gun discharged “accidentally” was reversible evidentiary error.
3. Whether the court committed plain error by not instructing on involuntary manslaughter as a lesser-included offense and by not giving certain self-defense or defense-of-property instructions.
4. Whether the habitual criminal enhancement under 14 V.I.C. § 61 applied, including whether “sentence” for the ten-year look-back includes parole as well as incarceration.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the convictions and the enhanced sentence.
- The trial court did not abuse its discretion in precluding the insanity defense as untimely and unjustified.
- The trial court erred by excluding the eyewitness’s lay opinion that the discharge was accidental, but the error was harmless.
- The failure to instruct on involuntary manslaughter and certain defense theories was not plain error on the record presented.
- The habitual criminal statute was properly applied because “sentence” includes parole, and Knight’s new offense occurred within ten years of completing parole on a qualifying prior felony sentence.

## Legal Principles

- A court may require insanity-defense notice to be reasonably prompt in light of the case circumstances; unjustified last-minute notice may be precluded to protect orderly trial administration.
- Lay opinion testimony is admissible when rationally based on the witness’s perceptions and helpful to the jury’s understanding or factfinding; exclusion may be harmless when the jury hears the underlying observations and the contested point is not meaningfully disputed.
- A lesser-included-offense instruction is required only when the evidence would permit a rational jury to convict on the lesser while acquitting on the greater; a killing occurring during the commission of a felony cannot be treated as involuntary manslaughter on that theory.
- Under 14 V.I.C. § 61, “sentence” for the recidivist look-back includes parole as part of the penal sanction, not solely time in confinement.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit upheld the trial court’s management of late-raised defenses, treated the erroneous exclusion of a lay “accident” opinion as nonprejudicial given the trial record and theory of liability, rejected claimed instructional errors under plain-error review, and construed “sentence” in the Virgin Islands habitual criminal statute to include parole for purposes of the ten-year enhancement window.


Gov’t of the V.I. v. Knight, 989 F.2d 619 (3d Cir. 1993)