State v. McNamara

The defendant was convicted of the crime of murder in the second degree. She admitted that on January 10, 1959, she shot her common-law husband, Edward Francis McNamara, at their home near Central City, Iowa, with a .22 caliber rifle thus causing his instantaneous death. She alleged she acted in justifiable self-defense.

I. The defendant claims that when she fired the fatal shot she was actuated by fear her husband was about to do her great bodily harm. There may have been some basis for such fear but the jury found otherwise and we cannot say, on the record here, that there was not sufficient…