Court Opinion

ID: 9753213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:03:54.463627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:32.258390
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
I join the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Pomeroy and also wish to add two additional brief observations.
First, many of our cases decided prior to Commonwealth v. Flax, 331 Pa. 145, 200 Atl. 632 (1938), accepted without question the proposition “that on a trial for murder where there is no evidence which in the *78remotest degree points to the offense of manslaughter, the court commits no error in instructing the jury that a verdict of guilty of manslaughter would not be warranted.” Commonwealth v. Yeager, 329 Pa. 81, 85, 196 Atl. 827, 830 (1938); accord Commonwealth v. Carroll, 326 Pa. 135, 191 Atl. 610 (1937); Commonwealth v. Crossmire, 156 Pa. 304, 27 Atl. 40 (1893) ; Commonwealth v. Buccieri, 153 Pa. 535, 26 Atl. 228 (1893).
The subsequent restatement of that rule seems to have been made without any apparent awareness of the substantive difference between the principle of Yeager, supra, and Flax and the cases decided thereafter.