Case ID: va_218/html/0453-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Richmond
    Howard Franklin Bittorf v. Commonwealth of Virginia
    October 7, 1977.
    Record No. 761542.
    Present: All the Justices.
    
      C. Willard Nonrood (Nonrood and Nonrood, on brief), for plaintiff in error.
    
      Alan Katz, Assistant Attorney General (Anthony F. Troy, Attorney General, on brief), for defendant in error;
   Per Curiam.

This is a companion case of Stevenson v. Commonwealth, Record No. 761500, this day decided.

On July 27, 1976, a jury found the defendant, Howard Franklin Bittorf, guilty of second degree murder of Lillian M. Keller. The jury fixed his punishment at confinement in the state penitentiary for a period of 20 years, and he was sentenced accordingly.

The sole issue before us in this case is the same as the one in Stevenson, namely, whether the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a bloodstained shirt allegedly worn by the defendant’s companion, John Paul Stevenson, on the day of the homicide and in allowing testimony concerning scientific tests run on the shirt.

For the reasons stated in Stevenson, the judgment of the court below is reversed and the case is remanded for a new trial.

Reversed and remanded.