## Facts

- Raymond Freddo, about 19 years old, worked in the roundhouse department of a Nashville railway shop alongside 50–60 employees, including James Higginbotham.
- Evidence described Freddo as quiet, peaceable, and unusually offended by obscene insults directed at women because of his personal background and upbringing.
- Higginbotham, several years older, associated with coworkers who commonly used obscene epithets as shop talk and repeatedly addressed Freddo with “son of a bitch.”
- Freddo repeatedly asked Higginbotham to stop; a supervising mechanic also warned Higginbotham to desist, but the language continued.
- During a work exchange on December 22, 1911, Higginbotham again used the epithet toward Freddo.
- Freddo struck Higginbotham once in the head with a metal bar; the blow was fatal.
- Freddo claimed he acted in self-defense based on Higginbotham’s movement or gesture and, alternatively, that the repeated epithet provoked heat of passion warranting voluntary manslaughter.
- A Davidson County jury convicted Freddo of second-degree murder and fixed punishment at ten years’ imprisonment; the trial court denied a new trial.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support second-degree murder rather than requiring acquittal on self-defense grounds or reduction to voluntary manslaughter.
2. Whether repeated insulting and obscene words toward the defendant, in the circumstances shown, constituted adequate legal provocation negating malice.
3. Whether the jury’s rejection of self-defense could be disturbed on appeal given the conflicting proof.

## Decision

- The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the second-degree murder conviction and the ten-year sentence.
- The court held the proof, viewed in light most favorable to the verdict, supported the jury’s finding of second-degree murder.
- The court treated self-defense and the significance of the alleged threatening gesture as factual matters for the jury and declined to overturn the jury’s credibility determinations.
- The court added a recommendation of executive clemency based on the defendant’s youth, character, and the surrounding equities.

## Legal Principles

- Appellate review of a criminal conviction defers to the jury’s resolution of conflicts in evidence and credibility when the record supports the verdict.
- Insulting or obscene words alone, even if repeated and subjectively aggravating to the defendant, are generally not adequate legal provocation to reduce an intentional killing from murder to voluntary manslaughter.
- A defendant’s claim that he reasonably feared imminent death or serious bodily injury, warranting deadly force, is ordinarily a jury question; an appellate court will not substitute its judgment when the evidence allows rejection of self-defense.
- Courts may affirm a conviction while recognizing mitigating circumstances as a basis for executive clemency rather than judicial reclassification of the offense.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Freddo’s second-degree murder conviction for a fatal blow with a metal bar, concluding that the jury could reject self-defense and that repeated insulting language did not amount to legally sufficient provocation to compel a manslaughter verdict, while separately urging executive clemency in light of the defendant’s youth and character.


Freddo v. State, 155 S.W. 170 (Tenn. 1913)