Court Opinion

ID: 9757522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:44:40.824191+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:40.422997
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Me. Justice Manderino :
I concur in the result reached by the majority. I do not agree, however, that a defendant can be deprived of his right to trial by jury on the question of malice which is a necessary finding for the crime of murder— *512any murder. An irrebuttable presumption that malice is present in a felony-murder situation deprives tbe defendant of this right. If the jury is charged that they must find malice as a matter of law, because a felony was committed, the judge, and not the jury, has made a final determination on the key factual issue in a murder case.
In this case there was no jury and if the guilty plea were valid, the defendant would have conceded the existence of malice and, therefore, the judge could properly have found first degree murder because the statutory law in Pennsylvania allows a finding of first degree murder when the murder was committed in the perpetration of armed robbery.
I agree that the guilty plea was valid for the reasons stated in the Concurring Opinion of Mr. Justice Roberts in Commonwealth v. Godfrey, 434 Pa. 532, 254 A. 2d 923 (1969).