Storie v. State

Winfred Taft Storie was indicted for the first degree murder of one James Otis Cotton by shooting him with a pistol. At trial he was found guilty of murder in the second degree, and punishment was fixed by the jury at thirty-seven years in the state penitentiary. His subsequent motion for a new trial being overruled by the trial court, Storie brings this appeal informa pauperis.

The first witness for the State was John Kilbourne, an employee of the State Department of Forensic Sciences stationed in Florence, who testified that, on October 24, 1978, he had had occasion to perform an autopsy on…