Court Opinion

ID: 9713047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:05:42.271884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:16.023259
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the act causing the death was done “in furtherance of the design to commit the felony.” In my opinion, the trial court was correct in refusing that requested instruction.
Murder of the second degree, “felony-murder”, is defined by 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2502(b) as a homicide “committed while defendant was engaged as a principal or an accomplice in the perpetration of a felony (emphasis supplied).” Nowhere in this statute are the words “in furtherance of the design to commit the felony”, and the majority is legislating in en-grafting this requirement into the plain meaning of the statutory language.
Consequently, I would affirm the judgment of sentence at No. 392.