Lucas v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 15 October 1929
• Citation: 231 Ky. 76,21 S.W.2d 113
• Parties: LUCAS v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

21 S.W.2d 113

231 Ky. 76

LUCAS v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

October 15, 1929

Appeal from Circuit Court, Letcher County.

John Lucas was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and he appeals. Affirmed.

D. I Day, of Whitesburg, for appellant.

J. W Cammack, Atty. Gen., and D. C. Vest, of Frankfort, for the Commonwealth.

STANLEY C.

Under an indictment charging the appellant, John Lucas, with willful murder of Joe Bates, he has been convicted of voluntary manslaughter and his punishment fixed at two years in the penitentiary.

Appellant was the next door neighbor and friend of the deceased, who kept a general store in a village in Letcher county. The appellant was drunk the evening of the homicide, and the proof of the commonwealth tends to show that he was rather boisterous. About 10 o'clock that night he called Bates from his home to go to the store and get him a bucket of lard. The only eyewitness, Ambrose Smith, testified for the commonwealth that he came up to the defendant sitting on the porch or platform of the store with a bucket of lard and advised him to go on home because he was drunk. About that moment Bates came out on the porch, and as the defendant was fumbling for his pistol he asked Bates where it was, and the latter replied, "I suppose you got it there in your pocket." The defendant found his pistol which had apparently fallen from his pocket, and turned about halfway around, and as he was in the act of falling from the platform the pistol was discharged the shot striking Bates in the leg above the knee. Appellant jumped and exclaimed, "Lord, Uncle Joe, have I shot you?" and then tried to assist the old gentleman to his home. Bates died of the wound about a month thereafter. Some members of his family testified to having heard several shots fired just before he went out, and detail circumstances tending to show that Lucas had fired them, and also that he had been quarreling with his wife, cursing and threatening to kill Willie Lucas before daylight.

The defendant testified that he first went to the store of Willie Lucas to get some lard, but it was closed. He then started home and somebody threw rocks at him, one of which struck him in the back and knocked him down. He went home and got his pistol for protection, came out and aroused Bates and bought from him a bucket of lard and some cigarette papers, and also got a bottle of tonic from which he drank. He admitted having drunk home-brew before that time. He came out of the store on the porch and sat down, and his testimony as to what followed is substantially the same as that of Smith. He denied having done the previous shooting and that he had had any quarrels or made any threats.

The only ground for reversal submitted is that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the verdict. The court gave instructions on murder (qualified by the right of self-defense), voluntary manslaughter based on shooting without malice aforethought and in sudden heat and passion, and also as the result of a reckless, wanton, or grossly careless use or handling of a deadly weapon, involuntary manslaughter, accidental killing, and reasonable doubt.

In felonious homicide there is a gradation of offenses, the particulars of which vary somewhat in the different states. Some jurisdictions classify it as first and second degree homicide, but we have always followed the rule of the common law by dividing homicide into murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. Our statute does not attempt to define either murder or voluntary manslaughter, but only prescribes the penalties therefor. Ky. St. §§ 1149, 1150. We, therefore, look to the...