Court Opinion

ID: 9532538
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:22:14.607757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:46.775726
License: Public Domain

*128WATKINS, Judge,
dissenting:
This is an appeal from the judgment of sentence of the Court of Common Pleas of Perry County, by the defendant-appellant, Kevin Eugene Gouse, after conviction non-jury of recklessly endangering under 18 Pa.C.S.A. 2705,1 and from the denial off post-trial motions. He was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for a period of three (3) to twenty-three and one-half (23 & V2) months.
The appellant raises two issues on appeal: (1) that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; and (2) that the sentence imposed by the court below should be reconsidered and modified.
The facts are as follows: The charges grew out of an incident in Marysville, Perry County, Pennsylvania on an evening in early December, 1977. At that time two men, James Scholl and Michael Miller, were leaving a local pool hall when they were hailed by the appellant who was sitting in his car parked across the street. The two men got into their car and pulled along side the appellant’s car. After an exchange of words, the appellant pulled out a shot gun and pointed it at the two men. It remained pointed at the men for approximately one minute at which time a third party intervened and the appellant lowered the shotgun.
At the trial there was no evidence to indicate that the shotgun was loaded. Testimony was produced that it was not loaded.
The Majority Opinion relies on Commonwealth v. Trowbridge, 261 Pa.Super. 109, 395 A.2d 1337 (1978), in which this court rules that mere apparent ability to inflict harm is not sufficient to support a conviction under the section charged. Rather, the court held that the Common Law assault requirement of actual present ability to inflict harm must be shown in order to sustain a conviction for recklessly endan*129gering. This Court reversed the recklessly endangering conviction of a woman who had pointed an empty BB gun at two policemen. The Court below had pointed out that: “the court found that even though the police drew their weapons and took cover behind their car, no present ability to inflict injury on the policemen was present because the police were alone on a deserted street in the middle of the night. In addition, there was no danger to vehicular traffic or pedestrians and no crowd of people to panic.”
In Trowbridge, supra, we specifically retained the ruling in Commonwealth v. Painter, 32 Somerset 115 (1976) which held that pointing a loaded gun at a passenger-filled car travelling at fifty miles an hour created a significant risk of loss of vehicular control and so provided the present ability to inflict injury under the act.
In the instant case, the trier of fact determined that under all the surrounding circumstances the pointing of the unloaded gun at the two men in the vehicle created a situation where actual serious injury may have resulted.
The victim’s car was temporarily stopped alongside the appellant’s vehicle. The incident occurred in early evening hours when vehicular traffic was on the street. A panic reaction to speed away to escape the situation would expose the occupants of the other vehicle to injury. The need to rapidly accelerate into traffic or to escape from the confines of the car might result in injury to them or to other innocent passersby. The court below found that the facts in this case are closer to Painter, supra, than to the ones in Trowbridge, supra, and that Trowbridge is not a bar to the recklessly endangering conviction of the appellant. I agree with the lower court’s analysis of this situation and would affirm the defendant’s conviction for recklessly endangering others.
The appellant’s complaint concerning sentencing is also without merit. This was not the appellant’s only offense. He was convicted by a jury of aggravated assault on a 73 year old man by means of a shot gun blast. This occurred on November 12, 1977 while the present incident took place on December 13,1977. Appeals were filed in both cases and *130were not consolidated on appeal. Sentencing took place June 18, 1979 on both cases. Petitions on both cases to modify sentence were denied. The court had before it a pre-sentence report and concluded that: “Rationale for the aforesaid imposition of a prison term is that even though this would appear to be the defendant’s first offense, the act nevertheless involves the use of a firearm with its commensurate dangers; and to impose a less severe sentence would be to depreciate the seriousness of the offense.” I would also affirm the sentence imposed on the defendant.

. 18 Pa.C.S.A. 2705—“A person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he recklessly engages in conduct which places or may place another person in danger of death or seriously bodily injury.”