Smith v. State

Judge Harold R. Banke.

Vernita Michelle Smith was convicted of manslaughter after she shot her husband. On appeal, she challenges the sufficiency of the evidence and the trial court’s refusal to charge the jury on the battered person syndrome, her sole defense.

The evidence supporting the verdict shows that Smith and her husband had been fighting on the day the shooting occurred. He hit her in the mouth, which caused her to inadvertently break a bottle of medicine she was retrieving for her sick child. After Smith went to her bedroom to get the child’s Medicaid card, her husband struck her in…