Beatty v. Commonwealth

Opinion op the Court by

Judge Cammack

Affirming.

Maggie Beatty, a colored woman, was given 21 years in the Beformatory for shooting Arnold (“Too-Tight”) Williams, also colored, in the back with a shot,gun. She asks that the judgment of conviction be reversed because (1) she was entitled to a peremptory instruction; and (2) the self-defense instruction should have included her right to defend her seven year old daughter, who was present at the time Williams was said to have assaulted her.

The parties lived on a hillside near the railroad yards in Hazard. The Beatty home faced a roadway. Down the…