Court Opinion

ID: 9825219
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:19:54.242241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:33.380930
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In the original opinion this court stated: “After a careful consideration of every question shown by the record, or reserved by bill of exceptions, we are clear to the conclusion that the accused was accorded a fair and impartial trial, such as the law provides, and no error appears in any ruling of the court calculated to injuriously affect his substantial rights.”
Now, on this application for rehearing, we adhere to and emphasize the foregoing statement by this court. Upon the trial in the court below the state contended, and offered evidence tending to sustain this insistence, that the killing of deceased by this appellant was atrocious, cruel and lawless, and wholly without mitigating circumstance or any semblance of justification. The testimony of Herrin Gilmore, the first State witness, as to the facts was, in part, as follows: “I know Sylvester Ingram. I knew Raymond Ennis in his lifetime. In July, 1937, I was at Condon’s Lake up here in Lee County when a difficulty occurred between Ingram and Ennis; I saw the difficulty. I was just a little piece from Ingram and Ennis, the participants in the difficulty. As to how the difficulty commenced, Ingram was drunk and he walked up to me and said ‘You know who that was said that about my sister on the truck?’ I said ‘No’. He said ‘You’re a damn liar. You do. If you don’t tell I am going to cut you.’ He started to cut me and I caught his hand and got out of the way. Ingram walked up to Ennis and said ‘You know who that was said that about my sister?’ Ennis said ‘No’. Ingram said T am going to cut you.’ Ennis started backing back out of the way. Ingram was after him and he pushed Ennis into the lake, into the water. When Ennis come out he ran around a tree, and Ingram ran around there and cut him three times, and Ingram ran in the woods. Ingram cut Ennis on both arms and he stabbed him in the heart. That occurred in Lee County at Condon’s Lake.”
The testimony of several other State witnesses was of like' import. The defendant testified in his own behalf, and the substance of his testimony was to the effect, he was drunk on the Occasion in question, and could not remember what took place. There was no denial by anyone of the fact that the defendant cut and stabbed the deceased. The defendant’s sister, Mrs. Essie Turner, and her husband, Robert Turner, testified to some facts tending to show self-defense. The testimony presented a jury question; whose province it was to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant, and, if convicted, the degree of homicide, and also fix his punishment. There was no erroneous ruling of the court calculated to injuriously affect the substantial rights of the defendant. Again we state, he was accorded a fair and impartial trial, and certainly the merciful and lenient verdict of the jury, under the facts in this case, is not a matter of which appellant could complain.
Application for rehearing overruled.