Hutcherson v. State

CATES, Judge.

Hutcherson and Mattie Pearl Gaddis were, on February 6, 1957, indicted for the first degree murder of Dartis Kelly by cutting him with "a sharp instrument.” Tried February 14, 1957, on a severance, he was convicted by a jury of first degree manslaughter arid sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

The case for the prosecution was built around Dartis Kelly’s dying declaration, wherein he stated that Mattie Pearl plunged a butcher knife in his abdomen, and this defendant hit him with a double-bit axe. There was medical testimony that the knife wound caused a blood clot that moved into…