Nature of the Case
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Facts
D was twenty-one years of age. The deceased, Eva Smith, was eighteen years of age, and a student in the high school at Las Cruces. For more than a year prior to the homicide, the young couple had been friendly, and it is evident from the record that D was enamored with Eva. An estrangement between them took place during the Christmas holidays in December 1929 and continued to the day of the homicide. D appeared in a car at Eva's home and requested that she go for an automobile drive with him that evening. She declined, saying she must study, and that she was through with him. D responded by saying he would see whether or not she was through with him. He drove away and about an hour and a half later reappeared and sent in a note to Eva by a younger brother. Eva sent out to him by this brother a reply. D drove away but reappeared in about ten minutes and through the brother asked her to come out to his car, which he had stopped directly in front of the family store. Eva went out to the car, was seen to be talking to D for a few moments, and was in the act of returning to the store having one hand on the screen door when D jumped from his car with a shotgun, rushed rapidly toward Eva and called upon her to turn toward him. As she did so, he fired directly into her left breast and she fell dead at his feet. D rapidly drove away. D made a plea of not guilty, on the defense of emotional insanity. D did not testify. The court refused to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter. D was convicted of murder in the second degree and appealed claiming in part that the court should have submitted the issue of voluntary manslaughter to the jury.
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