Court Opinion

ID: 9750149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:23:38.248431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:01.588766
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Chief Justice Bell :
Defendant was tried on June 12, 1967, without a jury, and was found guilty of receiving stolen goods and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Defendant’s motion for arrest of judgment and a discharge, or in the alternative a new trial, was denied by the lower Court. The Superior Court affirmed, per curiam, and Ave granted allocatur.
Considering defendant’s motion for arrest of judgment, the evidence presented at defendant’s trial, -viewed, as it must be, in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth—Commonwealth v. Schmidt, 437 Pa. 563, 263 A. 2d 382; Commonwealth v. Commander, 436 Pa. 532, 260 A. 2d 773; Commonwealth v. Rightnour, 435 Pa. 104, 253 A. 2d 644; Commonwealth v. Frye, 433 Pa. 473, 252 A. 2d 580; Commonwealth v. Tabb, 417 Pa. 13, 16, 207 A. 2d 884; Commonwealth v. Finnie, 415 Pa. 166, 202 A. 2d 85; Commonwealth v. Burns, 409 Pa. 619, 634, 187 A. 2d 552—established the folloAving.
At approximately 11:10 P.M. on January 31, 1967, Dr. Dick Hazin’s automobile was broken into and three pistols and two snow tires were stolen. On February 19, 1967, Lieutenant O’Connell went to Earl Harris’s grocery store armed -with a search warrant. He found, inter alia, one of the pistols which had been stolen from Dr. Hazin’s car less than three weeks earlier. At defendant’s trial, Harris testified that he had purchased the pistol from defendant for a price of $30, paying $20 in cash and agreeing to pay the balance of $10 at an indefinite future time. Harris’s wife, Velma, corroborated a part of Harris’s testimony when she testified that defendant had come into her husband’s gro*328eery store to obtain the $10 balance due Mm, at wbicb time he attempted to sell Harris a second pistol, which he showed her.
Defendant admitted having met Harris in prison many years earlier and having seen Mm on the street several times in the subsequent years. However, he denied he had ever possessed the stolen pistol or its sale to Harris, and he likewise denied Yelma’s testimony.
It has been the long and well established law of Pennsylvama that possession of recently stolen property raises a presumption of knowledge that the property had been stolen. Commonwealth ex rel. Ghatary v. Nmlon, 416 Pa. 280, 283-284, 206 A. 2d 43, 45; Commonwealth v. Newman, 276 Pa. 534, 539, 540, 120 Atl. 474; Commonwealth v. Pittman, 179 Pa. Superior Ct. 645, 118 A. 2d 214; Commonwealth v. Kaufman, 179 Pa. Superior Ct. 247, 116 A. 2d 316; Commonwealth v. Joyce, 159 Pa. Superior Ct. 45, 46 A. 2d 529.
In Commonwealth ex rel. Chatwry v. Nailon, 416 Pa., supra, the Court* said (pages 283-284) : “It is . . . well established that unexplained possession in the defendant of property recently stolen is evidence that he is the thief.** . .
In Commonwealth v. Newman, 276 Pa., supra, Chief Justice Moschzisicer, speaking for a unammous Court said (pages 539, 540) : “In charging the jury as to the legal effect of possession of stolen property, the court said: ‘Where property has been stolen and is speedily found in the possession of some one, the law puts upon him the burden of its explanation. Otherwise, he is deemed to have been the thief. The law does not fix *329any specific period of time for which, that duty or burden shall rest. Much depends upon the character of what the property is.’ . . .
“The guiding rule may be stated thus: The possession of recently stolen property by a person is evidence from which it can be found he is the thief, but the presumption is one of fact, not of law, and the jurors must pass on it as part of the evidence against the accused.”
Many Superior Court cases reiterate (although at times in slightly different language) this well and widely established* presumption of guilt from mere *330possession of recently stolen property. Commonwealth v. Gomori, 192 Pa. Superior Ct. 325, 161 A. 2d 649; Commonwealth v. Joyce, 159 Pa. Superior Ct. 45, 46 A. 2d 529; Commonwealth v. Kaufman, 179 Pa. Superior Ct. 247, 116 A. 2d 316; Commonwealth v. Dock, 146 Pa. Superior Ct. 16, 21 A. 2d 429.
In a vain attempt to avoid the above-mentioned well established principles of law, the majority base their Opinion upon Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 89 S. Ct. 1532 (1969) and Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 90 S. Ct. 642 (1970). Leary and Turner are clearly distinguishable on their facts. In Leary, the United States Supreme Court held unconstitutional a statutory provision which raised a presumption of knowledge of illegal importation of marijuana from the mere possession of marijuana. In Turner, the United States Supreme Court held that a statutory presumption of knowledge of illegal importation of cocaine from mere possession of cocaine was invalid because much more cocaine is lawfully produced in this country than is smuggled into this country. Furthermore, in Turner, a statutory presumption of knowledge of the illegal importation of heroin from the mere possession of heroin was upheld because the overwhelming evidence is that the heroin consumed in the United States is illegally imported. It is important to note that these two decisions are limited to the particular statutory presumptions in light of the particular circumstances of each case and do not decry or invalidate the Constitutionality of presumptions generally.
The prior decisions of this Court were not written on the sand to be washed away by each wave of new *331Justices. When crime is running rampant in our cities (and indeed throughout Pennsylvania and our entire Country) and terrifying our law-abiding citizens, this is no time to overrule well settled principles of law to aid criminals and those accused of crime and further jeopardize the safety and security of Society.
For the above reasons, I vigorously dissent.
Mr. Justice Cohen joins in this dissenting Opinion.

 The present Chief Justice dissented because of disagreement with the Court’s Opinion on the subject of jurisdiction.

 While this part of the Court’s Opinion was dictum, the many prior decisions cited therein were well established law.

 This presumption, which the majority Opinion finds Constitutionally infirm, is one which has deep roots in other jurisdictions, as well as in this Commonwealth. Act of June 24, 1939, P. L. 872, §817, as amended, May 21, 1943, P. D. 306, §1, 18 P.S. §4817. See also, Moore v. State, 241 Ark. 745, 410 S.W. 2d 399 (1967) ; People v. Williams, 61 Cal. Rptr. 238 (C.A. 1967) ; State v. Palkimas, 153 Conn. 555, 219 A. 2d 220 (1966) ; Combs v. Commonwealth, 341 S.W. 2d 774 (Ky. 1960) ; Smith v. State, 8 Md. App. 163, 258 A. 2d 755 (1969) ; Commonwealth v. Kelley, 333 Mass. 191, 129 N.E. 2d 900 (1955) ; State v. Boykin, 285 Minn. 276, 172 N.W. 2d 754 (1969) ; State v. Rumney, 108 N.H. 40, 226 A. 2d 777 (1967) ; State v. DiRienzo, 53 N.J. 360, 251 A. 2d 99 (1969) ; People v. Moro, 23 N.Y. 2d 496, 297 N.Y.S. 2d 578 (1969) ; State v. Chambers, 239 N.C. 114, 79 S.E. 2d 262 (1953) ; State v. Kurowski, 100 R.I. 25, 210 A. 2d 873 (1965) ; Tackett v. State, 443 S.W. 2d 450 (Tenn. 1969) ; Reaves v. Commonwealth, 192 Va. 443, 65 S.E. 2d 559 (1951).
Furthermore, all the Federal circuits have adhered to a similar principle involving the Dyer Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2312. “It is well established, in this Circuit as in all the others, that the possession of a recently stolen vehicle gives rise to an inference of knowledge of its theft in the absence of a satisfactory explanation to the contrary.” United States v. Teasley, 408 F. 2d 1012 (7th Cir. 1969). See also, Holden v. United States, 393 F. 2d 276 (1st Cir. 1968) ; United States v. Kompinski, 373 F. 2d 429 (2nd Cir. 1967) ; United States v. Pounds, 323 F. 2d 419 (3d Cir. 1963) ; United States v. Banks, 370 F. 2d 141 (4th Cir. 1966) ; Welch v. United States, 386 F. 2d 189 (5th Cir. 1967) ; Schwachter v. United States, 237 F. 2d 640 (6th Cir. 1956) ; Sewell v. United States, 406 F. 2d 1289 (8th Cir. 1969) ; Jones v. United States, 378 F. 2d 340 (9th Cir. 1967) ; Wheeler v. United States, 382 F. 2d 998 (10th Cir. 1967).
*330See also, Annotation, 68 A.L.R. 187 (1930), as supplemented, 56 A.L.R. 2d 1309, 1360 et seq., §41a et seq., as supplemented; 76 C.J.S. Receiving Stolen Goods, Sec. 17b (1952) ; and I Wliarton, Criminal Evidence, Sec. 135 (1955).