Court Opinion

ID: 9750933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:49:00.404504+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:29.170838
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice O’Brien:
I cannot subscribe to the majority’s interpretation of the Act of 1911.1 That Act forbids asking a criminal defendant “any question tending to show that he has committed\, or been charged with, or been convicted of any offense other than the one wherewith he shall then be charged, or tending to show that he has been of bad character or reputation,” (emphasis added) unless he first puts his own character or reputation in issue. To this one exception, the majority by judicial legislation adds another — unless the defendant claims self-defense. In that situation the majority would allow the Commonwealth “to prove by past behavior who was more likely to have been the aggressor.” This is the very evil which the statute is designed to prevent. In fact, Commonwealth v. Heller, 369 Pa. 457, 87 A. 2d 287 (1952), upon which the majority relies, far from supporting the majority’s position, actually destroys it. Heller states, at page 463, that the purpose of the Act is “to prevent blackening a defendant’s reputation or attempting to prove a disposition to commit crime.” The fact that in Heller the Commonwealth was permitted to cross-examine as to a crime, adultery, in order to show motive, in no way supports allowing the Commonwealth in the instant case to cross-examine *513“to prove by past behavior who was more likely to have been the aggressor.” The majority is thus allowing the Commonwealth “to prove a disposition to commit crime”, which Heller tells us is the very proscription of the statute.
Moreover, even if this line of questioning would in some instances be permissible, surely the instant case is not one of them. When the Commonwealth asked appellant whether she had stabbed the decedent three weeks prior to his death, appellant’s counsel objected, asked that the question be stricken, and moved for the withdrawal of a juror. A conference in chambers then took place as follows: “The Court: I will overrule your motion for the withdrawal of a juror. Mr. Johnson : If your Honor please, inasmuch as you have overruled my motion for the withdrawal of a juror, I specifically request your Honor at this time and in your final charge to the jury, to specifically instruct them to ignore the question and the answer, that they have nothing to do with this case, that it has no bearing, that there is no testimony that anything of this event ever occurred, and they should not consider it in their deliberations. The Court: This is cross-examination, and the prior conduct of the parties certainly is in issue — their entire relationship, which you, yourself, in direct examination have tried to elicit, and which the District Attorney has a right to establish it was not always as good as she has tried to present. And furthermore, if by competent evidence the District Attorney can prove that she did in fact cut him, he may— by competent evidence. Mr. Johnson : Your Honor then denies my request for the instructions? The Court: Yes, I do. Mr. Johnson: Very well.” Still assuming that in a proper case this sort of question may be asked, I could not fault the trial judge for not granting the motion to strike at this point. However, *514when the Commonwealth declined the court’s obvious invitation to follow up the question with some sort of concrete evidence, the court abused its discretion in failing to charge the jury to ignore this highly prejudicial question. Compare Wigmore, 3d Ed., Yol. Ill, §983. It should have been apparent at this point that the Commonwealth was either trying to besmirch appellant’s reputation by the question alone or was on an impermissible fishing expedition. By contrast, in Heller, the Commonwealth called as a witness Heller’s sister-in-law, who actually testified as to Heller’s adultery with her. Thus, even if the Act of 1911 permitted the Commonwealth’s questioning in the instant case, basic notions of fairness in the examination of witnesses forbade it.
I dissent.
Mr. Justice Cohen joins in this dissenting opinion.

 Act of March 15, 1911, P. L. 20, §1, 19 P.S. §711.