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148 Ark. 466

Trotter v. State

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided May 9, 1921

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1921-05-09

The evidence is not sufficient to sustain the verdict. It will not support a verdict of any higher degree of homicide than involuntary manslaughter. 34 Ark. 639. 2. There was error in refusing to admit testimony as to reputation of deceased. 2 Wharton, Cr. Law, § 1099; 2 Duval 328; 1 Mete. 370; 31 Miss. 504; 50 Mo. 357; 25 Mich. 405. 3: The court erred in its instructions to voluntary manslaughter. C. & M. Digest, § 2356; 99 Ark. 188; 117 Id. 302. 1.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

affirmed with modification · Decided 1921-05-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently October 1943

8 state decisions

40192119301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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McCulloch, C. J.

¶1(dissenting). Instructions Nos. 8, 9 and 10 are in the language of the statute defining manslaughter, and the error in No. 10 in declaring that the facts related constitute voluntary manslaughter was obviously clerical. It whs a mere “slip of the tongue,” and the meaning of the court was obvious to any one who took notice of the language used. If appellant’s counsel took notice of the error, they ought to have called the attention of the court to it by-a specific objection. If they did not notice it, then it is not conceiveable that the jury took sufficient notice of it to be misled by the incorrect statement. In other words, this is an instance, I think, where it is peculiarly essential that a specific objection should have been interposed to the incorrect language in an instruction. The trial judge repeated the precise language of the statute and manifestly intended to write the word involuntary, instead of voluntary. Perhaps the error was made by the stenographer who transcribed the instruction. At any rate it is presumable that the trial judge would have corrected the error if his attention had been called to it, for it may be assumed that he did not intend to give two definitions of voluntary manslaughter. The objection to this instruction was formal and general, the same as made to the other twenty-six instructions of the court covering all of the grades of homicide.

¶2The error is therefore harmless and should be disregarded.

Mr. Justice Smith joins in this dissent.
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