Regan v. State

Citations

• 87 Miss. 422
• 39 So. 1002

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Law. Change of venue. Appeal. Harmless error. Peremptory challenges. Failure to exhaust.</p> <p>A conviction of murder will not be reversed on appeal because of the denial of a change of venue:</p> <p>(a) Unless it clearly appear that the trial court abused its discretion; nor then</p> <p>(5) Unless it appear that the accused exhausted his peremptory challenges.</p> <p>2. Same. Instructions. Reasonable doubt.</p> <p>On the trial of a murder case, an instruction to the effect that the jury might conscientiously believe the defendant guilty, and yet not believe him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and in such case they should acquit,* may properly be refused where another instruction had been given telling the jury to acquit unless satisfied of the defendant’s guilt beyond every reasonable doubt arising from the evidence, as unnecessary and a useless refinement.</p> <p>3. Same. Homicide. Instructions.</p> <p>An instruction in a murder ease which predicates the defendant’s asserted right to kill of certain overt acts of the deceased, at the time of the killing, may properly be refused if it omit the idea that the overt acts reasonably induced defendant to believe that he was in danger of great bodily harm.</p> <p>4. Same.</p> <p>In a prosecution for murder, where the accused defended upon the ground that he did the killing because he thought his life in danger from a pistol about to be drawn by the decedent, and that he shot in self-defense, it is proper to modify. a requested instruction predicated of such defense by inserting the. condition that the defendant must have shot the deceased by reason of the belief actually engendered in his mind that his life was in danger.</p> <p>5. Same.</p> <p>Where, on the trial of a murder case, the defense was that the deceased attempted to draw a pistol to shoot defendant at the time defendant killed him, it is proper to modify a defendant’s instruction by inserting a proviso toi the effect that to warrant an acqui