Matthews v. State

PRENDERGAST, Presiding Judge.

Upon an indictment and trial for murder appellant was convicted of manslaughter and his punishment assessed at two years in the penitentiary.

The evidence was insufficient to raise the question of murder in the first degree. The court, in his charge, defined murder in the first degree, but in his charge on that subject expressly told the jury that the State did not prosecute for a higher offense than murder in the second degree and did not prosecute for murder in the first degree, that the definition he had given of murder in the first degree was given merely as a…