Court Opinion

ID: 9520834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:51:22.885918+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:00.256922
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
On December 14, 1956, the following opinion was filed:
Dell, Chief Judge.
A petition for rehearing has been filed by the appellant. The points raised in the petition were fully considered by the court and disposed of in the opinion heretofore filed. The petition must, therefore, be denied.
However, after reading the petition, we deem it advisable to correct what might be considered a misleading statement in the opinion. We said, in effect, that the trial court instructed the jury that the state must prove the essential elements of the offense, one of which was that the killing was done without excuse or justification. The trial court specifically so instructed the jury only with reference to the offense of murder in the first degree. The court then went on to point out the differences in the elements of lesser included offenses. Although perhaps not expressly spelled out, the instructions *212considered as a whole make it clear that the lack of “excuse or justification” element was also a necessary ingredient of the lesser offenses. If there was any technical error in the court’s charge respecting this element, it was clearly error without prejudice since, as pointed out in the opinion, the state’s evidence conclusively established that the killing here was without excuse or justification.
Petition for rehearing denied.
Judge Murphy took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.