Court Opinion

ID: 9757122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:19:21.305506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:35.105081
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the reversal of the judgment of sentence for murder at No. 29,1 but cannot join in the Court’s opinion, which decides a question it need not consider.
Appellant Gartner contends that he was entitled to a charge on involuntary manslaughter in this murder prosecution. For the reasons expressed in Commonwealth v. Polimeni, 474 Pa. 430, -, 378 A.2d 1189, 1196 (1977) (opinion of Pomeroy, J., joined by Eagen, C. J., announcing the decision of the Court), the question of whether a defendant on trial for murder has a right to such a charge regardless of the evidence is one I would leave for a case where a decision is necessary. Here, as in Polimeni, supra, Commonwealth v. Garcia, 474 Pa. 449, 378 A.2d 1199 (1977), and Commonwealth v. Ford, 474 Pa. 480, 378 A.2d 1215 (1977), there is no need to decide that question, and I express no view on it. It is sufficient to observe that there was evidence from which the jury could rationally conclude that the appropriate conviction, if any, in this case would be for involuntary manslaughter.2 Because the charge to the jury precluded that *533verdict, I agree that there must be a new trial on the murder indictment.

. In the appeal from the judgment of sentence for murder at No. 30,1 join in the disposition expressed in Part 1(B) of the opinion of Mr. Justice ROBERTS.

. The Commonwealth’s evidence indicated that Gartner fired the fatal shot from a distance of 147 feet while attempting to shoot out the tires of a car operated by Otis Mack, and the jury could have found that the killing of Marlon Matthews was accidental, although the result of criminal negligence. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 2504 (1973).

. In this jurisdiction it is not the practice to require juries in criminal cases to return special verdicts.