State v. Hamilton

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Fontron, J.:

The tragic events giving rise to this lawsuit took place on the evening of January 2, 1971, when the defendant, William H. Hamilton, III, and Gary Buhler, his friend and fellow insurance salesman, “went out on the town”, so to speak, in Hutchinson, Kansas. Their evening ended with an innocent third party dead, with Gary Buhler shot through the neck, and with the defendant Hamilton facing charges of first-degree murder and aggravated battery. The jury which heard the case returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree and fixed…