Strickland v. State

Citations

• 81 Miss. 134

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Law. Murder. Manslaughter. Code 1893, \\ 1149. Instructions.</p> <p>Where on the trial of an indictment for murder it appeared that several persons who were unknown to defendant, without warrant for his arrest, and when he had committed no offense, came to his •. home at night, some of them armed, declaring that they had come to arrest him, and demanding that he throw up his hands, and he at once shot at them, killing one of the number, for which the indictment was found, it is decided:</p> <p>(a) That an instruction in the language of the statute (code 1893, (j 1149) defining murder, among other definitions, as “ the killing of a human being, without authority of law, when done in the commission of an act eminently dangerous to others, and evincing a depraved heart, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual,” is not applicable to the case;</p> <p>(h) That defendant was entitled to have the jury instructed touching the law of manslaughter; and,</p> <p>(c) That an.instruction for the state, assuming the parties fired upon to have been officers, was erroneous.</p>