State v. Donahoe

I. There is no dispute that Lawrence Dolan is dead, and that he came to his death by a gunshot wound inflicted by the defendant. The only question which the jury in the court below was required to determine was whether the homicide was excusable on the ground of self-defense. It appears from the undisputed facts in the case that Dolan was the owner of a farm of two hundred and forty acres in Cass county, upon which he, with his family, resided. The farm consisted of three contiguous eighty-acre tracts, the length of each eighty being east and west. The house in which deceased and his family…