Owens v. State

The defendant below, John Henry Owens, was convicted of murder in the first degree for the unlawful killing of Edward Earl Kennedy, and was sentenced to twenty years and one day in the State Training and Agricultural School for Colored Boys. He was seventeen years of age at the time the alleged crime was committed. The defendant claims self-defense.

The record discloses that the decedent had been drinking beer at one or more taverns in the vicinity of Williams and Wellington Streets in Memphis. About 10:30 p.m., a number of young Negro men congregated and among them were the defendant and the…