Commonwealth v. Hawkins

JUDGE COFEE

delivered the opinion of the court.

Tlie indictment in this case charged that the appellee “ did, in sudden heat and passion, without previous malice, and not in self-defense, strike and wound George Gregory with a pair of blacksmith’s tongs, which said tongs was then and there a deadly weapon.”

The appellee, in a plea of former conviction, alleged that he had been arrested and tried and convicted before a justice for a breach of the peace, committed by fighting with George *604Gregory, and had paid the fine assessed against him, and that said conviction was for the identical acts…