Massachusetts man faces retrial in killing in Maine

AUBURN, Maine (AP) - Jury selection is underway in the retrial of a Massachusetts man whose murder conviction was overturned by the state supreme court in Maine.

Marcus Asante, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 35 years as the convicted triggerman in a drug-related killing in Sherman, Maine, before his conviction was overturned last year.

The supreme court ruled that a judge erred in instructions to jurors, allowing the jury to reach “a verdict based on impermissible criteria.”

It was first murder conviction to be set aside in more than a decade in Maine.