The People v. Newman

Roberta Newman was found guilty of murder and given the minimum sentence for that crime — fourteen years’ imprisonment — by a jury in the circuit court of Christian county. By this writ of error she seeks reversal of the judgment.

A clandestine love affair between two young married persons, aided by drunkenness on the part of one of them, culminated in a shooting affray which resulted fatally for William Willett. He was a coal miner, aged twenty-two, and Roberta Newman, then twenty-six, was the wife of another coal miner, living in Taylorville. She had been reared in Oklahoma, and at various…