Court Opinion

ID: 9541990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:30:29.077981+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:05:38.687037
License: Public Domain

*295LARSEN, Justice.
I dissent.
The majority opinion in Commonwealth v. Pounds, 490 Pa. 621, 631, 417 A.2d 597, 601 (1980), defined the alibi defense as:
a defense that places the defendant at the relevant time in a different place than the scene involved and so removed therefrom as to render it impossible for him to be the guilty party.
(emphasis added)
Appellant, Robert Willis, testified that he was at a bar two and one-half blocks from the victim’s apartment at the time the victim was being terrorized therein. This is not an alibi defense. Appellant was not far enough from the victim’s apartment “as to render it impossible for him to be the guilty party.” This is so, particularly in light of the fact that no witness placed him in or near the bar during the five minutes that the crimes were being committed. Thus, appellant was not entitled to a jury instruction on the alibi defense.
Accordingly, I would affirm the order of Superior Court which affirmed the judgment of sentence.
McDERMOTT and PAPADAKOS, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.