Blackwell v. State

Blackwell was tried in the circuit court of Smith county on a charge of murdering an unnamed infant horn to Mrs. Mary Stearns Jernigan, and was convicted and sentenced to serve a life term in the state penitentiary.

As we have determined that this case must be reversed and remanded for another trial, we deem it unnecessary to set forth in detail a statement of the facts and circumstances of the case.

The evidence to sustain the conviction rests almost entirely upon the testimony of Mary Stearns Jernigan, a woman twenty-seven years of age, not living with her husband. She lived with her father,…