Court Opinion

ID: 9753925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:35:22.977351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:58.150600
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Eagen :
I strongly disagree with the conclusion of the majority opinion in this case and must, therefore, dissent.
The facts are for the most part not in serious controversy. The defendant left her home in Akron, Ohio, in an automobile accompanied by her three year old son, with the definite, preconceived intention of killing him and then committing suicide. As expressed in her own words, “I wanted to kill him too, because I didn’t want anybody else to have him.” She planned to stop at a motel where gas was used for heating purposes and to use the gas in committing suicide. She first stopped overnight in a motel in East Liverpool, Ohio, and was disappointed to find that gas was not used therein. While there, she wrote two letters, one of which was to her father, indicating her intention to kill her son and then to destroy herself. The next day, she drove into Pennsylvania, stopping on two occasions to purchase a box of sleeping tablets, and finally that night checked in at a motel in the town of Cresson, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Finding no gas available on these premises, she first attempted to give the child some of the sleeping tablets, which he refused to swallow. She then consumed a large quantity of the pills herself, after which she took a towel and held it over the boy’s face for approximately ten to fifteen minutes not removing it, “until I knew he was dead” (her own words). Asphyxiation was the cause of the death.
*518The following morning, at six-thirty o’clock, she left the motel and drove twenty-six miles, wrecked her car and received injuries to her leg. She was taken to the Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital in Johns-town and there disclosed that she had killed her child and that the body could be found in a motel in Cresson.
She was indicted and tried on a general charge of murder. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, fixing the punishment at life imprisonment.
The defense was legal insanity. Medical testimony was offered in an attempt to prove that, at the time of the killing, the defendant did not have a clear perception of right and wrong and, of course, if this were true, she would not be legally answerable for her act. The truthfulness of this defense was, of course, for the jury.
At no time did the defendant deny she killed her son. At the Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital, she freely disclosed to the doctors and nurses that she had killed him. When arrested, she voluntarily told the state police and the district attorney’s representatives the manner and details of the killing. At the trial, she took the stand in her own defense and clearly told how she intended to kill her son and related in detail how she carried it out in cruel fashion.
The trial judge took the position and, in effect, instructed the jury that if the defendant were to be found not guilty, it Avould necessarily be on the ground of insanity. In other Avords, he did not specify or categorically say in enumerating or discussing the possible verdicts that the jury could return a verdict of not guilty generally. (In brief, he refused to charge that the jury could disregard completely all of the eAddence, including the defendant’s own admission of the killing' on the stand under oath, and find that the defendant, although sane, did not commit the Idlling). *519This, the majority opinion holds was error and sufficient to warrant a new trial.
How, under the evidence in this ease, the defendant, if found to be sane at the time of the killing, could be declared not guilty, I just cannot comprehend; and, if this is correct, what prejudice to the defendant resulted? She never denied the killing. Under oath, before the court and the jury, she admitted killing her son and graphically described the details of how she intentionally suffocated him.
The trial judge in adequate detail explained the presumption of innocence enjoyed by the defendant and everyone else charged with crime in Pennsylvania. He stated, “The defendant was indicted by the grand jury and a true bill was found by that body. However, it is not to be taken in any sense that the mere finding of an indictment by the grand jury is any evidence of guilt. The defendant comes into court clothed with the presumption of innocence, and under our law the presumption of innocence means that the person charged does not have to present evidence to clear himself of a charge, but the Commonwealth ultimately must produce evidence from which the jury can say that the defendant is guilty.” He further explained that the Commonwealth has, in the first instance, the burden of establishing the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. He defined the meaning of reasonable doubt in clear and understandable language. Needless to point out, in assessing the correctness and fairness of trial instructions the charge of the court must be read and considered in its entirety: Commonwealth v. Kloiber, 378 Pa. 412, 106 A. 2d 820 (1954) ; Commonwealth v. Patskin, 372 Pa. 402, 93 A. 2d 704 (1953).
I agree with the statement in Mr. Justice Cohen's opinion that this Court’s ruling in Commonwealth v. Edwards, 394 Pa. 335, 147 A. 2d 313 (1959), supports *520the conclusion reached herein by the majority. However, I strongly urge that the ruling in that case was illogical and not based on sound reason. It definitely overruled Commonwealth v. Patskin, supra, and should now be recognized as and declared to be an unwise decision.
A trial is not a game of skill or sharp maneuvers. Bather is it an orderly legal process designed to ferret out the truth. One of the most important responsibilities of the presiding jurist is to define in clear layman’s languagé the issues for determination by the jury and to explain to them how the facts established by the evidence relate to those issues. There must be some relationship between the law upon which an instruction is based and the evidence in the case. It would be clearly inappropriate to give instructions on some phase of the law not pertinent to the facts, and it is just as unnecessary for the court to devote extended instructions on the possible verdict of “not guilty generally” where, under the evidence, such a finding is not realistic or in truth possible.
I have read and re-read this entire record. If I had any doubt that this defendant enjoyed a fair trial, I would be the first among my brethren to protest vigorously and urge a retrial. I am convinced to the contrary. Also, I am of the firm conviction that to order a new trial in this case is not a proper or commonsense conclusion and that to do so manifests an unwarranted over-zealousness in protecting those who commit crime at the expense of the best interests of the good people in the community. In my Opinion, “Justice and common sense are sacrificed, not at the shrine of mercy, but at the shrine of guilt.”
Mr. Justice Benjamin B. Jones joins in this dissent.