Moore v. State
| Decision Date | 13 October 1913 |
| Citation | 160 S.W. 206,109 Ark. 475 |
| Parties | MOORE v. STATE |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Pulaski Circuit Court, First Division; Robert J. Lea Judge; affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
Jones & Owens, for appellant.
Wm. L Moose, Attorney General, and Jno. P. Streepey, Assistant, for appellee.
Appellant was indicted for the crime of murder in the second degree, alleged to have been committed by shooting her husband, Arthur Moore, and upon her trial she was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the penitentiary.
On the 24th of February, 1913, appellant, a negro woman, went to a house of ill repute in the segregated portion of the city of Little Rock, where she found her husband in the company of a negress named Mary Johnson. Appellant says she went to this house to persuade her husband to leave there and return home with her, but that her husband became angry, coaxed her into an alley adjoining the house, and there attacked her with a knife, telling her he would cut her, cursed her, and was about to stab her with the knife when she drew a revolver from her bosom and fired twice, and that deceased then dropped the knife and turned to flee, running out of the alley across the street, and fell dead on the sidewalk. That she then went down the alley in the direction deceased had gone, firing two shots about the time she came out of the alley. She further testified deceased had threatened to kill her if she came to this house for him, that he had beaten her on several occasions, and was a large and powerful man, without regular occupation, and spent his time gambling and in places of bad repute; and had been frequently confined in jail. Appellant offered evidence tending to corroborate her in several particulars. It developed that the two first shots both struck the deceased, one striking him in the face and the other in the back part of the shoulder.
The evidence upon the part of the State was to the effect that deceased was unarmed and that defendant went to the house for the purpose of killing her husband; that when she had shot him she said, "I killed my husband here, I did, he is my husband;" and, when asked why she killed him, she said: "I am the one that done the shooting; I'd soon not to have no man at all than have half a man."
Without reviewing the evidence in detail, it is sufficient to say that while, according to the evidence on the part of appellant, she fired in her necessary self-defense and should have been acquitted, on the other hand the proof on the part of the State is that the killing was committed deliberately, and the jury tempered justice with mercy because of the circumstances under which the killing was done.
A number of questions are presented by counsel for appellant, which were either not properly saved at the trial, or are not now regarded as prejudicial, or of sufficient importance to require discussion.
Appellant strenuously insists there should be a reversal because of the court's refusal to give instructions numbered 1 and 3, asked in her behalf. These instructions are as follows:
No. 1. "You are instructed that if you believe from the evidence in this case that defendant saw her husband (this deceased) in the early part of the evening, on...
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State v. Shannon, 41091.
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