People v. Smith

Defendant was convicted of the crime of murder in the second degree, and has appealed from the judgment of imprisonment and from an order denying a motion for a new trial.

On the 14th of February, 1922, defendant shot and killed Arthur Bell, using a 38-caliber revolver, from which she fired five shots at close range, all of which entered the body of the deceased. Both defendant and the deceased were of the negro race, defendant being at the time of the shooting twenty-s'even years of age and the deceased thirty-one. Defendant had formerly been married to a man named Smith, from whom she claimed to have been divorced. For a large portion of the six years immediately preceding the tragedy she had lived with the deceased, although not married to him. During the time that she sustained the relation indicated toward Bell there had been many quarrels between the two, due (according to defendant’s assertion) to attentions which Bell bestowed upon other women. It was because of this alleged propensity of Bell that the quarrel was precipitated, which resulted in Bell’s death on the date charged in the information.

On the night in question an inmate of the small rooming-house which was…