Ross v. State

Appellant, a negro, was convicted of the alleged murder of one Strain, a white man, and was sentenced, under the verdict, to suffer the death penalty.

Sometimes, although not often, a spirit of community vengeance finds its way into a jury verdict under the forms of the law, when, under the real facts and the real law of the land, no such severe verdict is justifiable; and it is one of the duties of this court to be mindful of this danger when, in a case less than perfectly clear, the extreme penalty has been pronounced as a result of a verdict. And when such a verdict has been returned in a…