BANGOR (AP) – The state supreme court was sharply divided Tuesday on the adequacy of standard jury instructions regarding self-defense as it denied a Bangor man’s appeal of his manslaughter conviction arising from a fatal beating during a party more than three years ago.

The justices split 4-3 on whether the trial judge erred in denying Bruce Mann’s request that instructions to the jury explicitly spell out the prosecution’s burden of proving that the blows that killed Jack Sears were not inflicted in self-defense.

The Supreme Judicial Court’s majority concluded that the standard instructions adequately addressed the burden of proof.

Mann, 45, was sentenced to 14 years, with all but nine years suspended, for killing Sears during the second day of a party at Sears’ Bangor apartment to mark his 40th birthday.

Mann admitted that on the evening of Nov. 7, 2001, he hit or kicked Sears at least 11 times in two separate incidents during the party. Mann testified that he, Sears and others had been drinking an average of three beers an hour for several days when the altercations took place.

Sears was rushed to a hospital the next morning when he began vomiting blood. He died after undergoing surgery for a head injury. The state medical examiner’s office said the death resulted from blunt force trauma to the head.

Partygoers initially told police that Sears was injured in a fall, but police later obtained statements from his live-in girlfriend, Carolyn Fish, and others that implicated Mann.

On appeal, the supreme court rejected Mann’s argument that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction but was split on the self-defense instructions.

The minority opinion said “the time has come to require simple, straightforward instructions” on self-defense and suggested that the instruction proposed by Mann’s lawyer was close to what was needed.

The three dissenters said the standard instruction drawn from state law regarding the state’s burden of proving that it was unreasonable for Mann to believe that Sears was going to use force against him “is difficult for a legal scholar to follow, let alone a lay juror.”