State v. Francis

The defendant excepts to and assigns as error the following portion of his Honor’s charge to the jury: “Now, in determining the degree of force a person may use you will have to take into consideration all the surrounding circumstances. Generally speaking, gentlemen of the jury, a person can’t fight somebody with a pis-- tol who is making what is called a simple assault on him, that is an assault in which no weapon is being used, such as a deadly weapon or a knife or a pistol. That would render human life too cheap. It is better for a man to be the loser in a fist fight than to cut or shoot…