Court Opinion

ID: 9716203
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:30:43.874495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:58:54.988932
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Pomeroy:
The brief excerpt, quoted by the majority, from the voluminous record of appellant’s trial,* reveals inept *21and unnecessary questioning by the prosecution and a volunteered, irrelevant answer by the police officer witness. That answer, however, does not strike me as conveying to the jury a prior police record of the defendant. It is true that there was a reference to searching police files. But the name “Groce” was linked to the name “Nino” not by reason of any file disclosure, but because the testifying officer “all of a sudden . . . thought of the name ‘Groce’.” The files, apparently, were barren.
In any event, I think it clear from the record that there was no objection to the quoted excerpt. The objection that was made (and which the majority finds sufficient for the reason that it was to “the same or similar evidence”) appears in the record thus: “Q. [District Attorney]: When the defendant was arrested, did you have occasion to bring him to the Media Police Station? A. Sir, he came in on his own. Q. As a result of what? A. Through our investigation and a door-to-door check, we came up with the name Nino. Then at this point . . . Mr. Duffy [Attorney for the Defendant] : I object to that, sir, and move to strike.” It is apparent to me that the ground of defense counsel’s objection, although general in form, was that what the witness learned through a door-to-door investigation was hearsay. It is quite certain that the objection could not have been to the introduction of “other crimes” testimony for the simple reason that there was no such testimony yet uttered and none apparently in the offing. When the Avitness later testified as to how he had connected in his memory the name “Nino” with the name “Groce”, defense counsel evidently detected no prejudice and remained silent.
While I subscribe wholeheartedly to the principle that a man should not be convicted of one crime by proof of his commission of unrelated past crimes, I fail to see how that principle was violated in this case. Even *22conceding that it is possible that one hearing this testimony might conclude that at some point in the past appellant had come out on the wrong side of the law, I think it unrealistic to say that a jury would seize on testimony that a police officer knew Groce by his nickname as a consideration in reaching a verdict of first degree murder. This is to attribute a prejudicial effect not to evidence of other crimes, but to a possible inference that there was a prior police record of some sort. This seems much too remote and speculative to be the foundation of a new trial in this case. See United States v. Hines, 470 F. 2d 225 (3d Cir. 1972).
Accordingly, I dissent.
Mr. Chief Justice Jones joins in this dissenting opinion.

 The trial consumed five trial days. Over twenty witnesses were heard, and their testimony comprises 870 pages of transcript.