Lee Funderburg was convicted of attempted murder and related charges in 2012 and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
TRENTON -- The state's highest court on Thursday reinstated the attempted murder conviction of a Trenton man who stabbed his former girlfriend's boyfriend during an argument.
Lee Funderburg was convicted of attempted murder and related charges in 2012 for stabbing Leno Parham in 2009. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Lee Funderburg Funderburg appealed and in 2014 won a new trial from an appellate court that ruled the trial court in Mercer County failed to instruct the jury that they could consider the offense of attempted passion/provocation manslaughter as a "lesser included" option to attempted murder.
The new trial was was put on hold when prosecutors petitioned to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
The Supreme Court overturned the appellate decision Thursday, finding Funderburg was not entitled to the attempted passion/provocation manslaughter option because the facts before the court did not qualify for it.
Parham was dating Terra Andrews, with whom Funderburg had a child from a prior relationship.
The stabbing occurred when Andrews and Parham went to Funderburg's residence to pick up the child.
Funderburg and Parham had a tense relationship, and Funderburg was angry that Parham kept accompanying Andrews when she came to pick up their son, according to prior testimony.
During an argument in the street, which included Parham chasing Funderburg, who had swiped his car keys, Funderburg lunged at Parham with a knife, stabbing him in the chest.
Parham underwent emergency surgery after waving down a vehicle to get him to a city hospital.
During the appellate and Supreme Court cases, the events leading up to Parham's stabbing were dissected through numerous witnesses testimony, including who had the knife first. One person said it was Parham who first brandished it.
But the high court said in their decision that "who started it" was not the issue.
Funderburg, the high court found, was not adequately provoked by Parham, thus not meeting the first of of a four-prong test for the charge of attempted passion provocation manslaughter.
"Parham's chase did not threaten Funderburg; it was simply an attempt to retrieve the car keys. The chase was preceded by verbal sparring, at which point Funderburg refused to return the keys," the court wrote.
"Thus, this interaction alone did not suggest adequate provocation. Beyond that, there was insufficient evidence to suggest that Parham had wielded the knife," the high court wrote.
Further, the Supreme Court said their decision hammers home prior case law, that courts are under no obligation to "meticulously sift through the entire record in every murder trial to see if some combination of facts and inferences might rationally sustain a manslaughter charge."
Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor William P. Fisher, who argued the appeal, was pleased in the court's decision.
"The court has restated the long held and practical principle that a trial judge is not obligated on its own accord to pour through the facts of a case to find some combination of those facts that would support a particular jury charge," Fisher said. "Most important, we are happy the victim will not have to relive the experience during a new trial."
Funderburg, now 29, served 2 1/2 years of his sentence in state prison before being transferred to the Mercer County jail following his successful first appeal. He remains there, records show.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.