Wilkins v. Commonwealth

In Waverly in a negro restaurant on the 3rd of December, 1939, at about eleven o’clock at night, James Wilkins shot and killed Willie Moyler. For that he has been tried, convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to confinement in the State penitentiary for fifteen years.

Wilkins stood by the restaurant counter talking to a young woman. Moyler came into the room, saw Wilkins, and said: “You are the one that has been talking about me.” And then, without more, he knocked him- across the room. He hit him again and knocked him down; while on the floor Wilkins drew his pistol and got…