State v. Buffington

Citations

• 71 Kan. 804
• 81 P. 465
• 1905 Kan. LEXIS 235

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Criminal Law — Defendant as a Witness — Cross-examination. The defendant, having assumed the character of a witness, was subject to the rules applicable to any witness, and questions as to his past life and conduct which would impair his credibility were not improper.</p> <p>2. -Instruction Properly Refused. No error was committed in refusing an instruction covering several propositions of law, where the court adopted the better practice of giving each important proposition in a single instruction and arranging all in logical order.</p> <p>3. Homicide — Instructions—Self-defense. An instruction that “if you believe from the evidence that at the time of the shooting in question the said Oda Miller made an attack upon the defendant with a chair, under such circumstances as to create in the mind of a reasonably and ordinarily prudent man a belief that he was in danger of being killed or of receiving great bodily harm immediately, and if you further believe from the evidence that the defendant at the time did honestly believe that he was in imminent danger of receiving great bodily harm, and in good faith shot to protect himself therefrom, and if you further believe that the defendant, acting in good faith, did not fire any more shots than he had a reasonable right to believe, under the circumstances in which he was placed, were necessary to protect himself or his wife from death or great bodily harm, then you should find the defendant not guilty,” was pertinent and correct.</p> <p>4. -Definition — Request. In the absence of a request for a definition of the words “in the heat of passion,” the omission to give one is not ground for reversal.</p> <p>5. - Defendant’s Testimony — Instruction Not Misleading. An instruction that “the defendant is a competent witness in his own behalf, and you have a right to consider’ his evidence and are to give it such faith and credit as you believe it entitled to receive,” when considered in connection