State v. Higgins

TITUS, Judge.

Defendant was charged with killing Dorothy Greer, an incompetent under guardianship, on February 19, 1980, at Indian Cave in Pulaski County. The jury was instructed on capital murder (as defendant was charged), second degree murder and manslaughter. It found defendant guilty of murder in the second degree and fixed his punishment at imprisonment for 30 years. Defendant appealed.

The facts surrounding the tragic killing were not in dispute at trial; neither is their sufficiency to sustain the conviction questioned on appeal. On the day of death defendant and Ms. Greer had been…