Hamilton v. State
| Decision Date | 17 October 1896 |
| Citation | 37 S.W. 194,97 Tenn. 452 |
| Parties | HAMILTON v. STATE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appeal from criminal court, Knox county; T. A. R. Nelson, Judge.
Ezra Hamilton was convicted of murder in the first degree, and appeals. Reversed.
J. C.J Williams, for appellant.
E. F Mynatt and G. W. Pickle, for the State.
The defendant was indicted for the murder of Walter Hansard. He was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to death, and he has appealed. It appears that defendant and deceased had bad feeling between them, arising out of their attentions to the same young lady. They were both quite young men. The night before the killing occurred, they attended a country church in company with young ladies. While at the church, defendant and the lady he was with were interrupted by the turning of the window blinds near where they sat. It was repeated more than once, and defendant thereupon moved over next to the window, and spat out of it. The deceased who was on the outside, cursed him, and told him, if he spat on him, he would kill him. Defendant thereupon went out of the house, and an angry altercation ensued, and defendant states that the deceased asked him to step out into the woods, and they would settle it, to which he replied that that was no place for a difficulty, and left him, and went into the house. On the next day the defendant passed by the house where deceased lived, and again, in the evening repassed the same way, along a public road. He had with him a companion, named Butcher. The deceased was working in his shirt sleeves near the road, stacking away some fodder. Defendant called to him to come down to the road, and the deceased left the barn, and went down to the road, and placed his hands upon the fence. At this point there is a material variance in the testimony. The theory of the state, supported by several witnesses, is that the deceased merely placed his hands upon the top of the fence, when the defendant at once drew his pistol. The deceased, seeing this, started to run back up the hill to the barn or crib, and defendant shot at him while he ran, five times, and the last shot struck the deceased in his left arm and side, just as he was turning abruptly to the left, in order to get behind a crib. The defendant's version of the case, supported to a considerable extent by Butcher, is that, when the deceased came down to the fence, the defendant said to him, "Walter, did you mean to call me a son of a bitch last night?" that deceased replied, with an oath, "Yes, and you are," and started to cross the fence, and, as he did so, placed his hand upon his pocket, as if to draw a weapon, and defendant thereupon, deeming himself in great danger, fired, and shot him while on the fence, and with his left side turned towards him. Defendant states that he had no intention when he called him of killing him, or of having a difficulty, but for the purpose of coming to an amicable settlement between them; and that he shot in self-defense, and while deceased was on the fence, and not when he was running away up the hill. These were the two theories presented, each sustained by some evidence.
In this condition of the record, the court charged the jury, among other things, as follows: "If the jury should be satisfied beyond a...
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