State v. Gillespie

EAGER, Judge.

The defendants were tried jointly and convicted of felonious assault, with malice, on one William Messer. The jury assessed the punishment of each at confinement in the penitentiary for a term of twenty-five years. The occurrences giving rise to the prosecution took place in the Jackson County Jail in Kansas City on January 26-30, 1959. Messer was a prisoner there as were also the defendants and the witnesses Jorld Rutledge and Billy Dean Harter. We find it necessary to state the facts in some detail.

All the participants were occupants of a section of the jail described as “D…