Smith v. State

The defendant was indicted for the first degree murder of his son, Roy Allen Smith, Jr. A jury convicted him of murder in the second degree and set punishment at twenty years' imprisonment.

I

The defendant maintains that the only eyewitness to the homicide, Elizabeth Ann Smith, was so mentally defective as to be incompetent to testify as a witness.

Prior to the actual trial of the case, the trial court conducted a hearing to determine Miss Smith's competency to testify as a witness. Miss Smith was twenty years. old and the daughter of the defendant. The trial judge questioned Miss Smith and…