Stallings v. State

Appellant (defendant below) was charged by indictment with murder in the first degree. A jury of his peers returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The evidence revealed that the victim was shot five times. The defendant admitted the shooting but claimed that he did so in self defense. One of the State’s witnesses testified that he had seen the defendant an hour or an hour and one-half before the shooting at a dice game in the parking lot of a liquor store and that the defendant then had a ■ pistol in his belt. The same witness…