{"id":2547,"date":"2011-03-03T09:22:46","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T09:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k.php"},"modified":"2011-03-03T09:22:46","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T09:22:46","slug":"man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k","title":{"rendered":"Man Who Says God Told Him to Kill Girlfriend Gets New Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) A New Jersey man who claimed God made him kill his pregnant girlfriend will get a new trial because jurors deciding his case should have been allowed to hear special instructions about an insanity defense, an appellate panel has ruled.<br \/>\nThe three-judge panel tossed out the conviction and 50-year sentence of Boyce Singleton Jr. on Monday (Feb. 28) because it said the trial judge should have allowed the jury to consider an insanity defense.<br \/>\nDuring Singleton&#8217;s trial in 2008, Superior Court Judge Patricia LeBon gave the general instructions that jurors could reach a guilty verdict on a murder charge if they found the defendant knew the killing was wrong.<br \/>\nBut, the appellate panel said, LeBon should have told jurors they could acquit Singleton by reason of insanity &#8212; even if they found Singleton knew killing Michelle Cazan was wrong &#8212; if they believed he felt God compelled him to act.<br \/>\n&#8220;It was for the jury to find the facts and determine whether the defendant believed God commanded him to kill Michelle,&#8221; Judge Clarkson Fisher Jr. wrote for the appeals court. &#8220;And it was for the judge to provide instructions depending upon how the jury might find the facts.&#8221;<br \/>\nSingleton, now 32, admitted he fatally shot and stabbed Cazan in their home in Mansfield Township on Sept. 13, 2005. Testifying during his 10-day trial, Singleton told jurors, &#8220;It was the right thing to do because it was something God was telling me to do.&#8221;<br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; MaryAnn Spoto<\/strong>, <em>Religion News Service<\/em><br \/>\n<em>(MaryAnn Spoto writes for <\/em>The Star-Ledger <em>in Newark, N.J.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) A New Jersey man who claimed God made him kill his pregnant girlfriend will get a new trial because jurors deciding his case should have been allowed to hear special instructions about an insanity defense, an appellate panel has ruled. The three-judge panel tossed out the conviction and 50-year sentence of Boyce Singleton Jr.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-rns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Man Who Says God Told Him to Kill Girlfriend Gets New Trial<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Man Who Says God Told Him to Kill Girlfriend Gets New Trial\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(RNS) A New Jersey man who claimed God made him kill his pregnant girlfriend will get a new trial because jurors deciding his case should have been allowed to hear special instructions about an insanity defense, an appellate panel has ruled. The three-judge panel tossed out the conviction and 50-year sentence of Boyce Singleton Jr.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-03T09:22:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Man Who Says God Told Him to Kill Girlfriend Gets New Trial","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Man Who Says God Told Him to Kill Girlfriend Gets New Trial","og_description":"(RNS) A New Jersey man who claimed God made him kill his pregnant girlfriend will get a new trial because jurors deciding his case should have been allowed to hear special instructions about an insanity defense, an appellate panel has ruled. The three-judge panel tossed out the conviction and 50-year sentence of Boyce Singleton Jr.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-03-03T09:22:46+00:00","author":"editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k","name":"Man Who Says God Told Him to Kill Girlfriend Gets New Trial","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-03-03T09:22:46+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-03T09:22:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/man-who-says-god-told-him-to-k#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Man Who Says God Told Him to Kill Girlfriend Gets New Trial"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249","name":"editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","caption":"editor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/editor"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/264"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}