King v. State
| Decision Date | 09 April 1892 |
| Citation | 19 S.W. 110,55 Ark. 604 |
| Parties | KING v. STATE |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
APPEAL from Pope Circuit Court, H. S. CARTER, Special Judge.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
The appellant pro se.
1. The testimony of Mrs. Ratliff and Frank Pyle as to threats was admissible. 26 Am. Rep., 52; 57 Ind. 80.
2. It was error to permit Dr. Ruff to testify as to the exhuming of the body, without notice to appellant or his counsel. Whart Cr. Ev., secs. 421, 423.
3. The court erred in refusing defendant's instruction No. 1. 52 Ark. 45; 49 id., 543, et seq.
4. The fifth paragraph of the court's charge is error.
W. E Atkinson, Attorney General, and Charles T. Coleman, for appellee.
Review the instructions asked and refused, citing 49 Ark. 547; 1 Hale, P. C., 487; Cro. Car., 544; Mansf. Dig., 566; 2 S.W 908.
The appellant, King, was jointly indicted with Tom Brown for the murder of J. N. Jones. On a separate trial he was convicted of murder in the second degree and has appealed. The circumstances of the homicide are fully stated in the case of Brown v. State, decided at the present term. The theory of Brown's defense was that Jones was killed while endeavoring in a violent manner to enter the dwelling house of Mrs. Ratliff for the purpose of assaulting him with a deadly weapon. He and King both shot the deceased from within the house and at the same moment. In this case, as in Brown's, it was proved that the reputation of the deceased was that of a revengeful and dangerous man. And several witnesses testified that when he was killed he was within a few feet of the door of the house and was advancing towards it with an axe drawn in a threatening manner.
The house consisted of a single room, and this could only be entered through the door in front of which the body of Jones was found immediately after the shooting. There was testimony to show that King and Brown were the guests of Mrs. Ratliff on the day of the killing. A few days previous to that time an angry controversy had occurred be- between King and Jones; and from statements made by King as a witness in his own behalf it would seem that he was apprehensive that Jones would attack him. And the instructions to the jury which he requested the court to give indicate that he sought to justify his participation in the homicide as well on the ground of self-defense as that in shooting the deceased he was resisting an assault upon Mrs. Ratliff's house.
Where a violent attempt to enter a dwelling house is resisted as a means of self-defense and the aggressor is slain, the ground on which the homicide may be justified, according to our view of the law, is stated in Brown's case and need not be repeated here. King's first instruction appears to have been requested with the view of presenting to the jury the theory that his act in shooting the deceased was a measure necessary to his personal safety. It does not meet all the requirements of the law; but so much of it as told the jury that the law did not require King to abandon the protection which the house afforded or to expose himself to increased danger by attempting to leave it was proper.
As the guest of Mrs. Ratliff, King could lawfully resist a violent attempt by Jones to enter her house for the purpose of assaulting "any person dwelling or being therein." Mansf. Dig., sec. 1551; Brown v. State ante p. 593; Wright v. Commonwealth, 85 Ky. 123, 2 S.W. 904. In defending the house when thus assailed it was his duty to avoid a resort to fatal means if he could do so without exposing himself to the danger of losing his life or of receiving great bodily injury. But he could rightfully...
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...evidence of hostile feelings and previous conduct toward and communicated threats and assaults against the person defended. King v. State, 55 Ark. 604, 19 S.W. 110; Brown v. State, supra; Hart v. State, 161 Ark. 649, 257 S.W. 354. See also, Commonwealth v. Girkey, Testimony showing the cond......
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