Hall v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 09 October 1936
• Citation: 97 S.W.2d 29,265 Ky. 516
• Parties: HALL v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

97 S.W.2d 29

265 Ky. 516

HALL v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

October 9, 1936

Appeal from Circuit Court, Letcher County.

Morg Hall was convicted of maliciously shooting and wounding with intent to kill, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Joe Hall and D. I. Day, both of Whites-burg, for appellant.

B. M Vincent, Atty. Gen., and J. J. Leary, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.

PERRY Justice.

At the July, 1935, term of the Letcher circuit court, Morg and Bill Hall were jointly indicted and accused of the offense denounced by section 1166, Kentucky Statutes (as amended by Acts 1934, c. 47), of having maliciously shot and wounded with intent to kill Sink Meade.

Upon trial thereon, Bill Hall was acquitted in obedience to a directed verdict granted him, and Morg Hall was by the jury found guilty as charged and his punishment fixed at two years confinement in the penitentiary. Complaining of this verdict and judgment thereon, he has appealed.

It is disclosed by the record that this shooting and wounding, for which appellant was here prosecuted, may be considered as the culmination of a long period of strained and hostile relations between Sink Meade and the appellant Morg Hall, and kinsmen, Bill Hall, Clifton Hall, and others of the Hall clan.

Such condition of long-continuing bad feeling between Meade and the Halls is shown by the uncontradicted evidence of the Meades, given in narrative form and depicting numerous prior clashes and hostile skirmishes and militant demonstrations between them, extending as far back as some eight or nine years before the occurrence of the shooting here involved and commencing upon an occasion when the Meades were visiting at the home of Manuel Meade, when a number of the Halls including the appellant, surrounded and shot into the house at them.

Further, the Meades testify that a later boisterous and hostile demonstration was made by the appellant and others of the Hall clan against them along about the second Christmas before this last shooting here in evidence, when it appears that Morg Hall and Clifton Hall, with several others of their crowd, rode up and down the road in front of Meade's home, cursing and waving their pistols as they abused and threatened him and his family, and yet other like instances, manifesting the Halls' continuing animosity towards them, are recounted in their evidence. Also Sink Meade testifies that so strong has been their hostility to him that for years he has avoided even the risk taken in his passing by their homes, lest they would fire upon him.

Further, it is shown that, soon following the last one of these repeated feudal displays of the Halls' enmity, early in the afternoon of the same day upon which occurred the later shooting and wounding of Sink Meade by the appellant Morg Hall, Sink Meade shot and wounded the appellant's uncle, Clifton Hall, as he was returning from work on a neighboring farm and passing through Meade's place.

This shooting by Meade of Clifton Hall, it was testified, was at once communicated by Jonas Meade, who saw it, to his kinsmen, the appellant Morg Hall and Bill Hall, who went at once to Clifton Hall's home, told his family of it, and then armed themselves with a gun and pistol, and, accompanied by Cliff's wife, eleven year old son, and a younger child, started up the road to find their father and kinsman Cliff Hall and learn if he had been killed.

The road along which they went in looking for him led them between Sink Meade's house on the one side, and his barn on the other, where, as the Halls passed by the barn, an interchange of pistol and rifle shots ensued, wherein Sink Meade was shot and wounded by the appellant, Morg Hall.

According to the account given by the Meades, as commonwealth witnesses, of this shooting affray, the Halls, including the appellant Morg Hall, were coming down the road on an avenging mission, not looking for Clifton Hall, but hunting for Sink Meade, who testifies that he was at the time they came sitting in the shed of his barn, with his back to the road and didn't know of their approach until warned by his wife; that his wife and daughter were at the time with him, doing chores, preparatory to his leaving home because of their apprehension of his having further difficulty with the Halls, sought by way of reprisal for his having that afternoon shot their kinsman Clifton Hall. He states that his wife first saw the Halls as they came down the road towards the barn, looking for him, and that, when they were near enough to see him through the open end of the barn, the appellant, Morg Hall, drew his pistol, aimed and fired two shots at him; that seeing this, his wife called and warned him, when Meade grabbed his gun and stepped out of the shed, where he exchanged two shots with appellant, who continued firing at him from the road until one of his shots took effect in...