People v. Johnson

Defendant Walter Johnson was granted leave to appeal from a life sentence imposed after his conviction by a jury of murder in the second degree and from the denial of his delayed motion for a new trial.

On October 13, 1937, while working at the Briggs Manufacturing Company, Johnson injured his finger. Shortly thereafter, at about midnight, there was a change of shift. Johnson, a negrp, who urns the last man to check out, was confronted by a mumbling hostile group of white men standing around the door. The testimony is not too clear as to what happened, except that Johnson and John Ozinkowski,…