Court Opinion

ID: 9756074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:06:20.616395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:14.537019
License: Public Domain

*594WIEAND, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Where, as here, the mother of a child has had intercourse with one other than the defendant during the period in which the child would have been conceived and she later causes such other person to be named as father on the .child’s birth certificate, her trial testimony naming appellant as the father of her child is insufficient to establish appellant’s paternity beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Rankin, 226 Pa.Super. 37, 311 A.2d 660 (1973).
Moreover, the instant prosecution was not brought within two years of the birth of the child; and, therefore, it is now barred. The two year period cannot be extended by an isolated payment to the prosecutrix of $20 where there is no designation by the defendant that the money is given or is to be used for the support of the prosecutrix’s child. See: 18 Pa.C.S. § 4323(b).
For both reasons, I would reverse the judgment of sentence and order appellant discharged.