State v. Ruggiero

This is an indictment for the murder of a two-year-old child, hereinafter sometimes referred to as the decedent child. After a jury verdict of manslaughter in the superior court, the defendant’s motion for a new trial and his motion to discharge were denied by the trial justice. The case is here on his exceptions to the denial of the two motions, to certain evidentiary rulings and to a portion of the charge.

The defendant, a divorced man and the father of four children, began living with a woman who was the mother of two children by her husband from whom she was separated. On August 1, 1958…