State v. Wright

The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree for fatally cutting one Frank Stewart and his punishment assessed by a jury at death, in the circuit court of the City of St. Louis. The judgment was affirmed in Division 2, but the cause was thereafter transferred by that Division, on its own motion, to the court en' banc because of doubt as to whether an instruction on self-defense should have been given, especially in view of prior decisions. The assignments in appellant’s brief complain of the insufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict of murder in the first degree; of…