Shannon v. Commonwealth

CLAY, Commissioner.

Appellant was prosecuted on the charge of murder and, upon being found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, was sentenced to four years in the penitentiary. She contends she was entitled to a directed verdict, but we reverse on the alternative ground that the instruction under which she was convicted was erroneous.

Early one Sunday morning at a small dance hall near Elizabethtown a young girl (age 13) while dancing, was shot in the head and killed. At the time appellant was seated at a table a short distance away with another woman, and a man known as “Big John”. The…