Court Opinion

ID: 9700990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:57:32.3901+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:17.016023
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno :
The defendant in this case denied he was guilty of the crime of murder with which he was charged and introduced evidence that he was elsewhere at the time the murder was being committed, that is to say, he advanced an alibi. In criminal cases there is no defense superior to an alibi. Despite the lightning-challenging speed of jet planes, missiles, and moon-bound rockets, it is still unhinged fantasy to assume that a human being may occupy two different points of geography at one and the same time. Although colloquially the word alibi is sometimes used flippantly to suggest something less than utter faetuality, it has never, in the law, lost any of its grave and solemn significance, and it behooves judges and prosecuting attorneys to so treat it, regardless of their own personal feelings in the matter.
Jerold Richardson, the defendant here, testified that at the time, according to the Commonwealth’s testimony, the murder of Roy Wunder was being committed in a taproom on the Baltimore Pike, Springfield, Delaware County, he, Richardson, was miles away in Philadelphia attending a dance, later visiting at a restaurant, and then finally resting at his home. *549A soldier in the United States Air Corps, Ernest M. Greaves, testified that he was constantly with the defendant during the time related; that is to say, he corroborated the alibi. Thus, the alibi was seriously advanced and, considering that the defendant’s very life was at stake, it was entitled to serious consideration. It failed to receive that consideration at the hands of the Trial Judge.
Richardson was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. He asks for a new trial, complaining that the Trial Judge incorrectly instructed the jury on the law of alibi. This Court has refused a new trial and, for the reasons hereinafter to be set forth, I dissent.
The Majority Opinion of this Court devotes considerable space to the evidence presented by the Commonwealth to prove Richardson’s guilt. Richardson could be as guilty as Jesse James and yet be entitled to a correct exposition of the law. The legal rope which hangs a guilty person should be strong enough to save an innocent person from drowning in the rapids of an unjust accusation. To approve the fallacy-laden charge of the Trial Judge in this case is to jeopardize the life and liberty, regardless of guilt or innocence, of every defendant of the future who pleads not guilty on the basis of an alibi.
The charge of the Trial Court completely missed the mark on the most important item in the case, on the side of the defendant. It adjusted its sights and aimed conscientiously but took its eye off the target when discharging the shot. Here is what the Trial Judge said on the law of alibi: “Now on the other hand there has been not only a denial in this case from the witness stand that this defendant participated, but there has been something else brought up -in the defendant’s case as an-affirmative-defense, and that is *550the question of alibi; because if this defendant convinces you by a fair preponderance of the evidence— not beyond a reasonable doubt, he does not have that burden, but if he convinces you by the weight of the evidence, by a fair preponderance, the balancing of the scales in his favor, that his alibi is true, then of course, he could not have been at the place where he is said to have been by the Commonwealth, he would have been at another place and he could not have committed this crime.
“I say to you that an alibi, if believed, is a very strong piece of evidence in favor of a defendant to show his innocence. However, I will charge you more fully on alibi a little later in the charge, reading the law to you.*
“So that the Commonwealth’s burden, in order to convince you of the defendant’s guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt that they must convince you; the defendant, on the other hand, in interposing an affirmative defense such as alibi, need only raise the issue by a fair preponderance of evidence.”
It will be noted that the Judge said that he would charge “more fully on alibi a little later in the charge,” but the remainder of the charge, so far as law on alibi is concerned, reveals only the background of an empty sky. The target has disappeared completely. The jury is left to assume, either that the alibi was not worth considering or that what had already been said by the Court on the subject was enough.
I must confess to sheer amazement that the Majority Opinion, in quoting from the Trial Judge’s charge, omitted (as I have already indicated in a footnote), the *551yery paragraph which is the heart of the case. How can the Majority dispose of an appeal when it ignores the major complaint? The Majority’s omission in this respect is like a doctor who examines an injured person, makes notes of bruises, lacerations and abrasions, but overlooks completely the fact that the injured man has a broken leg!
Since the omitted paragraph is practically the alpha and omega of the appeal, I will repeat it. This is what the Trial Judge said: “I say to you that an alibi, if believed, is a very strong piece of evidence in favor of a defendant to show his innocence. However, I will charge you more fully on alibi a little later in the charge, reading the law to you.”
In making such a statement the Trial Judge misled the jury in two ways. He not only failed to say what it was indispensable to say, but what he did say, was wrong. Thus: “I say to you that an alibi, if believed, is a very strong piece of evidence in favor of a defendant to show his innocence.”*
What is a piece? It is a part, it is a fragment of the whole, it is one of numberless little stones which go to make up a mosaic, it is a single leaf on a tree, it is a selected paragraph in a book, it is a solitary pebble on the beach, it is an individual note in a symphony. But an alibi is more that that. It is the whole tree, the whole symphony, the whole beach. So far as charges brought against a defendant are concerned, an alibi accepted as true presents a suit of mail against accusing arrows, it is a brick and iron fort against an incriminating blunderbuss, it is a steel umbrella warding off the rain and the storm of accusation. An alibi is not a “strong piece of evidence.” It is a complete defense. An alibi, if believed, is unassail*552able, bulletproof, watertight, invulnerable — impregnable. To say to a jury that an alibi is a strong piece of evidence is to say that it can be overwhelmed by stronger evidence, but there is no stronger evidence than a credible alibi.
The Majority attempts to repair the big hole in the Judge’s charge by speaking of other things. It relates how perfectly the Judge charged on reasonable doubt, how excellently he reviewed the evidence, how impeccably he instructed the jury on the burden of proof, but, after all its explanation, the gaping failure of the Judge’s charge on alibi stands out like a jagged wound in the hull of a ship which extends from the main deck to the keel, a wound which no patchwork can heal and which, if sustained far enough away from land, can only take the ship to the bottom of the sea.
The loose thread in the Judge’s instructions cannot be rewoven into the fabric of a perfect charge and it is no answer to say that the lawyer failed to call the imperfection to the Judge’s attention at the end of the charge. If the lawyer overlooked or forgot to remind the Judge, what did the Judge do when he said: “I will charge you more fully on alibi a little later,” and then forgot about it? Is the lawyer, with all the worries of an accused man’s life on his hands to be held to a higher standard of awareness than the judge who is accepted as the repository of wisdom and the apogee of intellectual alertness? Why did not the Judge do what he said he would do? Unless the Majority can explain the Judge’s omission in this regard, it cannot in fairness convict the lawyer of omission in performance of duty. Moreover, the Judge’s mistake was so basic and fundamental that the general exception taken by defendant’s counsel at the end of the charge fully protected the rights of the defendant. What this Court stated in the Case of *553Patterson v. Pittsburgh Rys. Co., 322 Pa. 125, 128, is still good law: “It is true defendant took only a general exception to the charge, but where, as here, the case calls loudly for such instructions, the failure to give them must be regarded as basic and fundamental error. Inadequacy of a charge may be taken advantage of on general exception where the instructions omitted are vital to a proper conception by the jury of the fundamental principles of law involved (DiPietro v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 315 Pa. 209), and the inadequacy is just as basic where, in a case like the present, the legally established methods of determining the factual question involved are not explained to the jury. Indeed, even in the absence of a general exception, the appellate court of its own motion may reverse because of basic and fundamental error: Schmitt v. City of Phila., 248 Pa. 124; Marlowe v. Travelers Insurance Co., 313 Pa. 430.”
The Majority Opinion says: “Defendant contends that the trial Judge committed fundamental error in failing to charge the jury ‘that the evidence of alibi, may with the other facts in the case, raise a reasonable doubt as to defendant’s guilt.’ ” The Majority then submits that the failure of the Judge to so charge does not entitle the defendant to a new trial because, aside from the fact that he made no objection to the omission, it was not required that he have that particular instruction. In support of this contention the Majority cites and quotes from Commonwealth v. Jordon, 328 Pa. 439, and Commonwealth v. Blanchard, 345 Pa. 289, but neither of these cases supports the Majority’s position. On the contrary, they are devastating authority to the contrary. In the Jordan case this Court said: “Even if not thus proved, [that is, the alibi], however, the evidence in support of the alibi may, with the other facts in the case raise the reason*554able doubt of guilt which entitles a defendant to acquittalIs tliis not exactly wbat the defendant contends, and is this not exactly wbat tbe Trial Judge failed to charge?
In the Blanchard case this Court said: “In regard to defendant’s attempt to prove an alibi, tbe trial judge not only charged that such a defense could be established by the mere preponderance of the evidence, but he added that an alibi ‘is the most perfect defense in the toorld’; he did not need specifically to state, although it is true, that the evidence offered in support of an alibi may be sufficient of itself to raise a reasonable doubt.” Commenting on this statement, the Majority says that “this is a correct statement of the law.” But it is particularly to be noted that in the Blanchard case the Trial Judge said that an alibi “is the most perfect defense in the world.” But the Trial Judge in the case at bar did not approach the remotest suburbs of saying that an alibi is the most perfect defense in the world. Contrarily, his discussion on the subject produced the impelling inference that if there was anything in the world which lacked perfection, it was precisely Richardson’s alibi.
The question of how to charge where alibi evidence is involved is not a new one. This Court has spoken, on the subject many times. One of the landmarks in this respect is the case of Commonwealth v. Mills, 350 Pa. 478, which the Majority Opinion dismisses at the door. In that case the defendant was charged with murder and his defense was an alibi. The Trial Judge charged: “While the Commonwealth is required to establish the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, all that the defendant is required to do is to establish his alibi by the fair weight or preponderance of the evidence. In other words, the evidence offered by him and his witnesses, in support of his *555contention that he was at home, in bed, or preparing to go to bed, at the exact time that this shooting took place, must be such, in your minds as lair and reasonable men and women, that it outweighs the evidence produced by the Commonwealth.”
This Court held, unanimously, that such a charge was inadequate and ordered a new trial. Chief Justice Maxey, speaking for the Court, said: “If the testimony the defendant offered in support of his alibi raised a reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds as to the defendant’s presence at the scene of the homicide he was entitled to an acquittal.”
Nowhere in the case at bar did the Trial Judge say that the alibi of itself could raise a reasonable doubt which could entitle the defendant to an acquittal. All he said was that an alibi is a piece of strong evidence. But strong is a relative expression. A cat is strong as against a mouse, but in the jaws of a mastiff a cat is no stronger than the mouse was strong.
Reviewing the authorities in the Mills case, Chief Justice Maxey, said: “In Rudy v. Commonwealth, 128 Pa. 500, 18 A. 344, Justice Sterrett speaking for this court, said of the charge of the lower court in that case that ‘it constitutes a full, clear and accurate statement of the law on that subject. The burden of proving it was clearly on the prisoner. If he failed to do so to the satisfaction of the jury, the alleged alibi, as a substantive defense, was valueless; but that did not deprive him of the benefit of his evidence on that subject, so far as it, in connection with other testimony in the case, may have had a tendency to create a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.”
It could happen in a criminal case that two sets of witnesses, apparently equally crediblé, could testify to conflicting accounts as to the defendant’s presence at or absence from the place of the crime at the time *556it was committed, and the jury could conclude that the defendant had not established by the preponderance of the evidence that he was not at the scene of the crime when it occurred. However, it could be that in another part of the trial a question arose as to whether the Commonwealth had proved, as it contended, that the money found on the defendant was the money which had been taken from the victim of the crime. In such a case, even though the jury did not implicitly accept the alibi, the evidence on the alibi could, joined to the evidence on the money, raise a reasonable doubt which would work an acquittal. This kind of a situation could well come within the legal proposition announced by Justice Kephart (later Chief Justice) in the case of Commonwealth v. Barrish, 297 Pa. 160, namely, “Where one is accused of having committed a crime and from all the proof submitted, including the evidence as to the alleged alibi, a doubt exists in the jury’s mind as to whether the accused was at the scene of the homicide at the time of the commission of the crime, this may be enough to warrant acquittal because of a reasonable doubt of guilt.”
The Majority offers no more hospitality to the case of Commonwealth v. New, 354 Pa. 188, 214, than it did to Commonwealth v. Mills. But the New case is one not to be driven from the doorstep like a vagrant. It announces a principle, which, so far as I have been able to determine, this Court has never in the past deviated from, namely, “The jury must also be instructed that The evidence in support of the alibi may, with other facts in the case, raise the reasonable doubt of guilt which entitles a defendant to acquittal’.”
It must be particularly noted here that the Court says, not that the Trial Judge may. charge that the alibi evidence could with other evidence in the case raise a reasonable doubt; it says that the jury must be *557so instructed. Nor was this mandate handed down in the dim and dust-covered days of an ancient past. It was said in 1946 and therefore postdates the Blanchard decision. Not that I see anything in the Blanchard case which would acquit the charge in this case of error.
If this Court intends to repudiate and overrule the established law on the subject of alibi, it has the authority and the power to do so. I do not see the necessity for such a change; I do not see the wisdom of such a change; I do not see how it can justify such a change in the case at bar without committing the sin of ex post factoism, and I do see here a definite harm to the guarantees of liberty; I see here a deprivation of rights under trial by jury as it has come down through the centuries; and I accordingly energetically
Dissent.

The Majority Opinion Iras omitted this paragraph from its reproduction of the Court’s charge on alibi.

 Italics. throughout, mine.