Court Opinion

ID: 9757444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:40:54.92+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:39.415090
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority distorts and misapplies the inference arising from the use of a deadly weapon upon another person and therefore erroneously concludes sufficient evidence was introduced at trial to warrant a verdict of murder in the first degree. In my view, evidence of “the firing of a bullet [at a] general area in which vital or*9gans are located,” ante at 88, is not of itself sufficient to warrant a judgment of murder in the first degree. I dissent and would remand for the entry of judgment of sentence for murder in the second degree.
Murder is the unlawful killing of another accompanied by certain states of mind of the actor. Cf. Commonwealth v. Stewart, 461 Pa. 274, 336 A.2d 282 (1975); see also Commonwealth v. Taylor, 461 Pa. 557, 565-566, 337 A.2d 545, 549 (1975) (concurring opinion of this writer joined by Jones, C. J., & Eagen & Manderino, JJ.); W. LaFave & A. Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law §§ 68-72 (1972). This crime was divided by statute into two degrees at the time appellant killed the deceased.1 As relevant to this case, murder is of the first degree when it is “willful, deliberate, and premeditated.” 2
The burden of establishing that an accused possessed the state of mind required for a conviction of murder in the first degree is, of course, on the Commonwealth. Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L. Ed.2d 508 (1975). However, because of the difficulty of proving by direct evidence the accused’s state of mind, the Commonwealth often must establish that the accused’s act was willful, deliberate, and premeditated on the basis of the circumstances surrounding the incident. One of the circumstances which tend to show the accused’s mental state and from which the jury may conclude that a killing was willful, deliberate, and premeditated is the nature of the killing itself. Thus, where the killing “was so particular and exacting that the defendant must have intentionally killed according to a precon*10ceived plan, the jury may conclude that the crime was murder in the first degree.” W. LaFave & A. Scott, supra § 73, at 564. This principle has been employed in Pennsylvania by permitting3 a jury to infer that the accused acted willfully, deliberately, and with premeditation from the fact that he intentionally used a deadly weapon upon a vital part of the body.4 See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Hornberger, 441 Pa. 57, 270 A.2d 195 (1970); Commonwealth v. Ewing, 439 Pa. 88, 264 A.2d 661 (1970).
The majority’s decision today would permit a jury to infer the presence of willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation in virtually any case in which death was caused by a gunshot wound. However, this Court has never before held that the mere use of a firearm upon any part of the body is sufficient to support a verdict of murder in the first degree. In Commonwealth v. Gidaro, 363 Pa. 472, 70 A.2d 350 (1950), the case relied upon by the majority, the Court did not rely on any such theory in reaching its result. In that case, the appellant shot the deceased in the lumbar region of the back. The bullet was deflected by a bone and entered the deceased’s heart resulting in his death. The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree and appealed to this Court. He contended that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury that the evidence was insufficient to support a verdict of murder in the first degree. The Court disagreed. Finding that appellant had fired the bullet into “an area [of the deceased’s torso] containing *11organs necessary to the continuation of life,” the Court concluded that the required state of mind could be inferred from the intentional “use of a deadly weapon upon a vital part of the body.” Id. at 477-78, 70 A.2d at 361-62 (emphasis added).
It is obvious why we have never held that mere use of a deadly weapon upon any part of the body is sufficient to establish murder in the first degree. Where the weapon is not intentionally fired at a vital part5 of the body, the evidence does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing “was so particular and exacting that the defendant must have intentionally killed according to a preconceived plan.” It thus does not establish the mental state required by statute to raise the killing to murder in the first degree.
In the present case, the evidence establishes that appellant intentionally fired a bullet into the deceased’s arm at pointblank range (according to the Commonwealth’s evidence) or at most from six feet away (according to appellant’s). Although this evidence is sufficient to permit an inference that appellant intended to do serious bodily harm to the deceased and would therefore support a verdict of murder in the second degree, see Commonwealth v. Boyd, 461 Pa. 17, 334 A.2d 610 (1974), it does not establish that appellant acted with the willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation necessary to constitute murder in the first degree. Because there is no other evidence in the record establishing willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation, I would vacate the judgment of sentence for murder in the first degree and remand to the trial court with instructions to enter a judgment of sentence for murder in the second degree.

. Act of June 24, 1939, P.L. 872, § 701, as amended. This act was repealed and replaced by the Act of December 6, 1972, P.L. 1482, No. 334, which was in turn amended in relevant part by the Act of March 26, 1974, P.L.-, No. 46, § 4, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502 (Supp. 1975).

. Act of June 24, 1939, P.L. 872, § 701, as amended. The current murder statute now divides the crime into three degrees; first degree murder is “willful, deliberate and premeditated killing.” Act of March 26, 1974, § 4, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502 (Supp.1975).

. We stated in Commonwealth v. Murray, 460 Pa. 605, 609, 334 A.2d 255, 257 (1975), in a slightly different context:
“The inference ... is clearly only a permissible one. A fact-finder is permitted to draw it or, even absent rebuttal evidence, not draw it. See generally W. LaFave & A. Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law § 68, at 536-37 (1972).”

. Appellant does not challenge the validity of this inference. 1 therefore express no view as to whether the inference without more is sufficient to establish, willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation.

. What is a vital part of the body may depend in certain cases upon the nature of the weapon used.