State v. Walsh

During the late hours of Christmas Eve, 1968, Robert Walsh had an altercation with his brother William. The records of the Rhode Island Hospital indicate that William was admitted to that institution on December 24 at 11:21 p.m. for treatment of a “gunshot wound in [the] head.” Robert was indicted on a charge of assaulting William with an intent to murder him. Trial was held in the Superior Court. There, Robert maintained that he had not shot William. He insisted that while defending himself from his brother’s karate style of attack, he had struck William on his head with the barrel of an…