U.S. v. Delaney

Record contained sufficient evidence to support jury’s guilty verdict on first-degree murder charge arising out of defendant’s assault of his cellmate while housed in federal prison. While defendant argued that jury should have found that he killed cellmate in heat of passion, and thus should have been convicted of only voluntary manslaughter, record supported instant first-degree murder conviction, where defendant admitted to prison guard that cellmate, as child molester, had to be killed and conceded to FBI agent that he had attacked cellmate “after some thought.” Moreover, while defendant testified that attack was triggered by spontaneous rage stemming from his own childhood sexual abuse, jury was entitled to believe his pretrial admissions instead.