Court Opinion

ID: 9757123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:19:21.309196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:35.106273
License: Public Domain

NIX, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
In reaching the conclusion that appellant Gartner’s conviction of murder must be reversed, the majority repeats the reasoning it relied upon in Commonwealth v. Garcia, 474 Pa. 449, 378 A.2d 1199 (filed October 7, 1977). I am thus constrained to again express my disagreement. I do not believe that the majority’s rationale is either required or authorized under the Crimes Code.1 See Commonwealth v. Garcia, supra (Nix, J., dissenting opinion).
The majority, through judicial fiat, has ignored the expressed legislatively defined degrees of homicide and vested in the jury the power of “mercy dispensing” which permits it to determine the degree of homicide based upon unspecified imponderables which they alone may deem to be significant. Not only does this approach invite arbitrary action by juries, it also leaves a reviewing court powerless to ascertain and to remedy discriminatory verdicts.2 I must emphatically dissent not only because the majority has engaged in the most flagrant kind of judicial legislation but also because the end product is jurisprudentially unsound.
The term “mercy dispensing power” is merely an euphemism to justify a rationally unsupportable verdict. This is also true where a “lesser included offense” rationale is employed in a factual context where a finding of the lesser charge cannot possibly be justified.3
*534The only explanation for the majority’s willingness to permit such an erosion in the adjudicative process is the unwarranted fear that a lay fact-finder is likely not to possess the intestinal fortitude to return a verdict dictated by the evidence.4 As I have stated, I do not share such a dim view of my fellow citizens. Commonwealth v. Garcia, supra (Nix, J., dissenting opinion). Even if such a fear is supportable, it is ironic that the majority’s response is to throw out verdicts rendered by juries that did have such fortitude.
I have considered all of the arguments of appellant and I find them to be devoid of merit. Under my view there is no need to remand the cause to the trial court but rather the judgment of sentence should be affirmed.
As to appellant Pfaff’s conviction, I concur with the majority’s affirmance of judgment of sentence.

. 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 101 et seq. (1973).

. It is my general view that the decision as to which degree of homicide to charge is and should be á matter of prosecutorial discretion, and the exercise of that discretion should not be frustrated by this Court’s imposition of unwarranted jury instruction requirements. This general view is subject only to the qualification that where there exists a factual dispute as to an element of the greater offense, which element is not within the lesser offense, then and only then should there be a right to an instruction on the lesser *534offense. Thus if the greater offense is comprised of elements A, B, and C and the lesser of elements B and C, a factual dispute going to element A would give rise to the right to an instruction on the lesser offense. I adopt this qualification, because the United States Supreme Court has suggested that the failure to so instruct in such a case might present serious constitutional questions. See Keeble v. United States, 412 U.S. 205, 93 S.Ct. 1993, 36 L.Ed.2d 844 (1973). It should be noted that this approach is not equivalent to the “rational basis” approach. Under this latter approach, a jury instruction on the lesser offense would be required whenever there was evidence going to elements B and C, regardless of whether element A was factually in dispute.

. I am eagerly awaiting the majority’s development of this concept to ascertain whether a judge, in a bench trial or on a plea of guilt, will be given a similar power (i. e., a mercy-dispensing power). If this power is not given to the judge where he undertakes the role of the fact-finder, then the constitutional problems would abound. If he is conferred with the same power, then the legislatively defined grades of homicide will be rendered meaningless.