State v. Durham

STRUCKMEYER, Justice.

This appeal is from a plea of guilty to a charge of second-degree murder and the sentence thereon.

During the early morning hours of March 8, 1969, a fight broke out between members of rival motorcycle clubs in a tavern parking lot. In the course of the altercation, the defendant-appellant, Arlie Frank “Franko” Durham, a candidate for membership in one of the motorcycle clubs, stabbed a member of another club, Peter Henry “Bear” Smith. Smith was hospitalized and released, and then was re-admitted on March 16, 1969. He died some six weeks after the stabbing of an infection…