Bowlin v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 25 May 1893
• Citation: 22 S.W. 543,94 Ky. 391
• Parties: BOWLIN v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

22 S.W. 543

94 Ky. 391

BOWLIN v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

May 25, 1893

Appeal from circuit court, Montgomery county.

"To be officially reported."

Henry Bowlin was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed.

Tyler &amp Apperson, H. B. Kinsolving, Hazelrigg & Reid, and H. M Woodford, for appellant.

Wm. J Hendrick, for the Commonwealth.

LEWIS J.

Henry Bowlin, having been indicted for murder of Henry C. Brown convicted, and sentenced to death, appeals. According to testimony of witnesses of the commonwealth, the deceased, while walking quietly along a public street in Mt. Sterling, and after he crossed from one corner of a square to another, was shot in the back of the neck, and instantly killed, by appellant, who had followed, and, when near enough to touch him, shot with a pistol without warning. It further appears that a year or more before that the two men had a quarrel and fight at a picnic in the country in the vicinity of where they resided, and subsequently, on occasion of a fight between deceased and a man named Wilson, appellant procured or had a gun, with which, there is evidence tending to show, he intended and endeavored to shoot deceased. In behalf of appellant witnesses testified that in the forenoon of the day of killing, there being a considerable number of persons assembled in Mt. Sterling to hear a political speech, deceased met appellant on a street, and threatened to kill him, though he made no demonstration to then do so; and that appellant then procured a pistol, having come to town without one. According to the testimony of appellant and of one or two other witnesses, he did not, in fact, follow deceased to the corner where the homicide occurred, but, before seeing deceased, he had started diagonally across the street to a storehouse on that corner for the purpose of meeting a person there on business, and before reaching that place unexpectedly met deceased, who spoke to him, saying, "Damn you, I have got you now," or "I will kill you now," at the same time putting his hand in his pocket, and drawing towards appellant. He further states he was at the time of that collision nearer to the corner mentioned than was deceased, and that deceased saw him when the shot was fired. It was further proved by witnesses in behalf of appellant that deceased had during several months prior to the killing repeatedly threatened to kill appellant, and carried a gun apparently for that purpose. The deceased was shown to have been a much larger man than appellant, and several...