Pennington v. Commonwealth

PALMORE, Judge.

Having been found guilty of willful murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, Rawleigh Pennington claims four reversible errors as follows: (1) denial of a continuance, (2) separation of the jury during the trial, (3) the giving of a willful murder instruction without evidence sufficient to justify it, and (4) overnight lodging of the jurors outside the county seat.

In the early evening of October 12, 1962, Pennington and the decedent, Hosa Shepherd, were in a card game outside the gasoline service station of Gordon Melton near Wooton, in Leslie County, Kentucky. Pennington…