Tate v. State

Jordan, Presiding Judge.

It is undisputed that the defendant, James Tate, shot and killed his common law wife, Mary Lee Rowe, in their home on January 31, 1970. Indicted and tried for murder, he appeals from a conviction and sentence for voluntary manslaughter. Held:

1. Where the sole factual basis for a killing in the heat of passion, to reduce the offense from murder to manslaughter, is dependent on the unsworn statement of the accused that he shot at his wife in the course of a domestic quarrel when she advanced upon him with a butcher knife, the instructions of the trial judge in the…