Court Opinion

ID: 9702649
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:20:11.705711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:40.229649
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Chief Justice Bell :
The grant of a new trial to this hardened criminal who was convicted of two murders way back in 1947 will, realistically—because of the death of witnesses or the inability to locate them, or their inability to recall in detail exactly what had happened 25 years ago—set this murderer free. To me, this is incomprehensible!
Proof of defendant’s guilt of these two murders was so overwhelming, that his confession of armed robberies, burglaries and larcenies could not have affected the jury’s verdict in these frightful murders. Moreover, defendant-appellant admitted that he shot at the officers several times but claimed he had no intention to lull any of them. As to Officer Quigley whom he shot and killed, defendant testified “that his gun discharged accidentally* while Quigley was attempting to disarm him.” Furthermore, the Majority have overlooked the well-established law that a jury can believe or disbelieve all or a part or none of what a defendant or a witness says: Commonwealth v. Carroll, 412 Pa. 525, 194 A. 2d 911; Commonwealth v. Winebrenner, 439 Pa. 73, 265 A. 2d 108; Commonwealth v. Chermansky, 430 Pa. 170, 242 A. 2d 237.
*229The evidence proved—and the totality of the facts demonstrated—defendant’s guilt of these two murders, not merely beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any possible or even any imaginable doubt. See Commonwealth v. Carroll, 412 Pa., supra.
The grant of a new trial in cases such as this evidences, inter alia, three things—-(1) why the Courts have a colossal, overwhelming and constantly increasing backlog of cases, (2) why crime is sweeping our Country like a tidal wave, because there is no quick and certain punishment and no effective deterrent to crime, and (3) why recent Court-created, unrealistic, pro-criminal legal technicalities, which are made of Judicial straw* and then often applied retroactively, merely serve to delay, impede, impair and make a mockery of Justice.
I very vigorously dissent.

 About the only things defendant forgot to aUege was that his confession was not voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently made and that he was and always had been some kind of a psychotic with a small I.Q. and that he was incapable of forming an intent, or knowing what he was doing, or that he blacked out and could not remember anything, or that his counsel was ineffective, or that both the district attorney and the trial Judge violated several provisions of the Constitution or committed many prejudicial errors which necessitated a new trial or a discharge.

 See the dissenting Opinions of many Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.