State v. Blaine

Defendant was charged with murder in the first degree, and convicted of murder in the second degree. The defense was that the killing was justifiable, and the first error assigned is that the court erred in overruling a motion for a directed verdict at the close of the state’s case. This assignment will need no discussion other than that which follows. The testimony of the state was ample to carry the case to the jury.

It is next insisted that the court erred in compelling defendant to admit, when on the stand as a witness in his own behalf, that he had been convicted of a crime and had been…