State v. . Floyd

The question for decision is whether error was committed in the following instruction to the jury: “When the killing is shown to be intentional and without legal provocation, and without just cause or excuse, or where the killing is shown to be done with a deadly weapon or in a cruel and brutal manner, then the law implies that it was done with malice.”

It is the position of the defendant that in a prosecution for murder in the first degree, the State must prove every element of the offense, S. v. Locklear, 118 N. C., 1154, 24 S. E., 410, and cannot avail itself .of the presumption of malice…