Court Opinion

ID: 9648465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:22:23.007321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:01.458241
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bell :
Jackson and defendant attempted to hold up and rob a grocery store; the owner shot and killed Jackson. Can defendant be found guilty of murder under those facts?
The modern and most accurate definition of murder is thus stated in Commonwealth v. Bolish, 381 Pa. 500, 510, 113 A. 2d 464: “Murder is defined as an unlawful killing of another with malice aforethought, express or implied.”* Malice, express or implied, it is universally agreed, is the trade-mark of murder.
*646Where a killing occurs in the commission of a robbery malice is implied and the felony murder doctrine applies — all authorities, ancient, modern, case and text agree and both of the dissenting opinions admit- — to unintentional and accidental killings which are the natural and reasonably foreseeable result of the robbery: Book IV Blackstone Commentaries, §§192-193, page 1589; §§200-201, pages 1598-99; Commonwealth v. Bolish, 381 Pa., supra, pages 510, 520, and the numerous cases and text authorities cited therein. If we analyze how such a killing can (and does) amount to murder, -it will aid us in solving the question involved in the instant case. The reason is that (a) any person committing any common law felony or one of the enumerated statutory felonies, possesses a malevolent state of mind which the law calls “malice”; and (b) malice is present in the felon (or felons) actually or by legal implication not only at the time of the original felony but also at the time of the killing; and (c) such person is from time immemorial responsible for the natural and reasonably foreseeable results of the felony. Commonwealth v. Bolish, 381 Pa., supra; Commonwealth v. Almeida, 362 Pa. 597, 68 A. 2d 595; Commonwealth v. Guida, 341 Pa. 305, 308, 19 A. 2d 98; Commonwealth v. Lessner, 274 Pa. 108, 112, 118 A. 24; IV Blackstone Commentaries, §§200-201, page 1599; Clark & Marshall “Crimes”, 4th Ed., §245, page 298.
Justice Jones and Justice Musmanno admit that the felony murder doctrine is part and parcel of the common law but believe that the felony murder doctrine should not apply where the killing is (so-called) “justifiable”.
*647Justice Jones states: “I am at a loss to understand how anyone can be guilty of murder at common law for ... a justifiable homicide.” We might fairly ask the analogous question: If Justice Jones is correct, “How can anyone be guilty of murder [as all authorities agree they can] for an accidental or an unintentional homicide?”* How is- it possible to draw a logical or realistic or sound or legal distinction — -so far as the crime of murder is concerned — A between an unintentional or accidental killing in the perpetration of a robbery and (what the minority calls)' a - justifiable killing in the perpetration of a robbery? Another point overlooked by the minority is that the killing of a robber may be (and usually is) a justifiable killing so far as the intended victim or a police officer is concerned, but that does not make it a justifiable killing qua the co-felon who caused the .shooting.
Felony-murder, like malice, which is the sine qua non of murder, is a creation of the law. Its origin is shrouded in antiquity. The reason for its origin, development and application to modern conditions was and is “the protection of society”. Malice is a malignant state of mind — a mind filled with a wicked malevolent intent to commit, singly or with others, a felony which, according to the experience of mankind, will naturally and likely result in the killing of some *648person. It is the parent as well as an integral part of felony murder — they both were firmly imbedded in the common law and are centuries old. Without the application of the felony murder doctrine or principle, an unintentional or accidental killing in a hold-up could not amount to common law murder. Malice is obviously just as much present in the felon or felons in a so-called justifiable killing which occurs in a robbery, as in an accidental or unintentional killing which occurs in a robbery. Consequently, if the killing occurred in a robbery, what does it matter who fired the fatal shot or who was killed?
It is interesting and relevant to note that the two dissenting Justices differ as to what is and what is not a justifiable killing. Justice Musmanno believes that the felony murder doctrine applies if the person killed was an innocent person, irrespective of who fired the fatal shot; but it does not apply if the person killed was one of the robbers, since killing a robber while he or an accomplice is committing a robbery is justifiable. Justice Jones, on the other hand, apparently believes that the felony murder doctrine applies only if the defendant or one of the robbers fired the fatal shot and that in such an event it does not matter who was killed.
Isn’t the distinction made by Justice Jones and by Justice Musmanno a distinction without any justifiable or legal difference since, we repeat, the malignant state of mind which the law calls “malice” is present in each felon in. a so-called justifiable killing just as much as in an accidental or an unintentional killing and in each case the killing was the natural and reasonably foreseeable result of the felony? Furthermore, doesn’t each of these attempted distinctions ignore sound public policy as well as the theory and application of the doctrine of “implied malice” and “felony murder”?
*649Moreover, Justice Jones's present view appears to be diametrically different from and inconsistent with (that part of) the standard or test (which is presently relevant) adopted by him in his carefully considered dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Almeida, 362 Pa., supra, where he said (page 643) : “The jury should have been instructed that, in order to find the defendant guilty of murder, it was not only necessary for them to find the killing to have been coincidental with the perpetration of a felony in which the defendant was at the time participating but that they would also have to find that the fatal shot was fired by one of the felons or, if not fired by one of them, that the conduct of the defendant or his accomplices set in motion a chain of events among whose reasonably foreseeable consequences was a hilling such as actually occurred.*
In the light of that “reasonably foreseeable consequences” test, which was the same (common law) test laid down by the majority opinion in Commonwealth v. Almeida, and followed by this Court ever since Almeida, isn’t his present position inexplicable?
There is, in my judgment, no reason, principle or justice to support the distinction drawn by the minority; and even more important, the Courts of Pennsylvania — after an exhaustive consideration of all the theories and contentions which have been advanced by the minority in this case — have clearly, specifically and unequivocally ruled to the contrary.
Because a man’s life is at stake and because of the importance of the felony murder doctrine, it is wise to consider the theories and propositions advanced by the minority — even though they have been repeatedly rejected by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania — and *650to re-examine the decision in the Almeida case* and what the law of Pennsylvania was prior to Almeida, and what it has been ever since Almeida.
Justice Jones erroneously premises his present dissenting opinion with the statement (a) that the only murder known to the law of Pennsylvania is (with the exception of the wanton derailment of a railroad train: Section 919 Penal Code of 1939, P. L. 872) common law murder, i.e., murder as it existed under the common law of England; and (b) that the majority opinion extends Commonwealth v. Almeida, which over-extended the felony murder doctrine, and that such an extension is unjustifiable. We are convinced that those statements are neither accurate nor correct.
Murder in Pennsylvania includes a killing in the perpetration of a common law felony and also a killing in the perpetration of certain enumerated statutory felonies which were unknown to the common law such as statutory arson, statutory. rape, statutory burglary, and kidnapping, which was a common law misdemean- or: See, Penal Code of 1939, §701; Commonwealth v. Maloney, 365 Pa. 1, 11, 73 A. 2d 707; Commonwealth v. Carey, 368 Pa. 157, 82 A. 2d 210; and Commonwealth v. Bolish, 381 Pa., supra.

The Almeida Case

Commonwealth v. Almeida is legally on all-fours with the instant case and directly rules it. This Court decided in the Almeida case that where an officer was killed by a fellow officer while attempting to prevent the escape of the robbers, all of the robbers were guilty *651of murder in the first degree, even though the fatal shot was fired by a policeman or by an innocent bystander. The principal contention of the defendant in that case was that he could not he convicted of murder unless he fired the fatal shot. All of the minority’s contentions in the instant case are fully answered in the exhaustive and convincing 38 page Opinion of Chief Justice Maxey in the Almeida case. From that opinion we quote the following (pages 600-602, 603-604, 605, 607):
“The Commonwealth contends that ... it is immaterial whether the bullet was fired by one of them [i.e., the three robbers] or whether it was fired by one of the policemen in repelling the assault of the bandits and in attempting to frustrate their escape.
“The defendant’s first assignment of error is that the court charged the jury as follows: ‘. . . it makes no difference who fired the shot, even if a shot was fired by Mrs. Ingling it was murder.’ Defendant’s second assignment of error is based on the court’s refusal to affirm defendant’s thirteenth point for charge, which reads as follows: ‘If you find that the bullet which was fired and killed the deceased was not fired by any one of the three men charged with perpetrating the robbery in question, you cannot convict the defendant of murder in the first degree.’

a

“ ‘. . . I will charge the jury that it makes no difference who fired the shot, even if a shot was fired by Mrs. Ingling, it was still murder.’*
*652“In his charge the trial judge said: ‘If that [fatal] shot were fired by anyone, even anyone removed from these three participants, and that shot was fired in the perpetration of robbery, members of the jury, that is murder; that is murder in the first degree. ... If one or more persons set in motion a chain of circumstances out of which death ensues, those persons must be held responsible for any death which by direct, by almost inevitable sequence, results from such unusual criminal act. . . . So, if the death of Officer Ingling was the inevitable consequence of the unlawful act, or acts, of the defendant, or the continuation of the unlawful act, or acts, of the defendant, acting in concert — for every one who does an unlawful act is considered by law as the doer of all that follows — if that unlawful act be robbery, and if the result of that act is a killing, members of the jury, that killing is murder.’
“The defendant’s thirteenth point for charge which the trial judge correctly rejected was in effect a request that the court instruct the jury that in order to convict the defendant of the death of Officer Ingling, the jury would have to find that the fatal shot was fired by one of the three robbers. Such an instruction would have been in defiance of this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Moyer and Commonwealth v. Byron, 357 Pa. 181, 53 A. 2d 736, which decision the trial judge dutifully followed. In that decision handed down on June 30, 1947, this Court held in an opinion concurred in by the six judges who heard the argument on appeal, that: ‘A man or men engaged in the commission of such a felony as robbery can be convicted of murder in the first degree if the bullet which causes *653death was fired not by the felon but by the intended victim in repelling the aggressions of the felon or felons.* . . . when a felon’s attempt to commit robbery *654or burglary sets in motion a chain of events which were or should have been within his contemplation when the motion was initiated, he should be, held responsible for any death which by direct and almost inevitable sequence results from the initial criminal act. . . . Every robber or burglar knows when he attempts to commit his crime that he is inviting dangerous resistance. . . . If 'in fact one of the bullets fired by Earl Shank in self-defense killed Harvey Zerbe, [an innocent bystander], the responsibility for that killing rests on Moyer and his co-conspirator Byron, who had armed themselves with deadly weapons for the purpose of carrying out their plan to rob Shank and whose murderous attack made Shank’s firing at them in self-defense essential to the protection of himself and his employees and his property.’ (Í
“Justice Holmes in his book on ‘The Common Law’, (36th Ed.) pp. 56 and 57, said: Acts should be judged by their tendency under the known circumstances, not by.the actual intent which accompanies them. . . . ‘the object of the law is to prevent human life being endangered of taken. . . . the law requires [men] at their peril to know the teachings of common experience, just as it requires them to know the law. . . . the test of murder is the degree of danger to life attending the act under the known circumstances of the case.’
“. . . The felonious acts of the robbers in firing shots at the policemen, well knowing that their fire *655would be returned, as it should have been, was the proximate cause of Officer Ingling’s death.” .
The Court then (1) carefully analyzed and rejected all of the theories and contentions which are now made on behalf of the present defendant (Thomas); and (2) likewise analyzed and distinguished or rejected all of the authorities upon which Justice Jones relies in his dissenting opinion in the present case; and (3) reviewed and approved many cases from our sister States which were in accord with the majority opinion in Almeida.-
In view of the present state of the law in this Commonwealth the question of whether (as Justice Jones contends) Almeida extended the felony murder doctrine or whether it had any prior decision of this Court to support it, is certainly academic. However, I agree with the six Justices in the Almeida case who were of the contrary opinion and specifically held that the cases of Commonwealth v. Moyer and Byron and Commonwealth v. Almeida were factually and legally precisely the same and then said, inter alia, (pages 603-604).: “Our decision in the Moyer-Byron case was an application of the long established principle that he whose felonious act is the proximate cause of another’s death is criminally responsible for that death and must answer to society for it exactly as he who is negligently the proximate cause of another’s death is civilly responsible for that death and must answer in damages for it.” That long established principle is equally applicable to the present case.
The principle that a person is liable for the natural and reasonably foreseeable consequences of his act did not originate with Commonwealth v. Almeida — it is centuries old. “If one intends to do another felony and undesignedly kills a man this is also murder. If one shoots at A and misses him, but kills B, this is mur*656der, because of the previous felonious intent which the law transfers from one to the other”: Blackstone’s Commentaries, Book IV, §§200-201, page 1599.
The famous “Squib Case” — Scott v. Shepherd, 2 William Blackstone Reports 892 (1773) is another illustration of this ancient doctrine. In that case Shepherd, the defendant, tossed a lighted squib into a marketplace. It fell near A who, reacting naturally in accordance with the common experience of mankind, picked it up and tossed it away from him. It fell near B, who likewise picked it up and threw it away from him; unintentionally and solely by chance it hit Scott in the face and destroyed one of his eyes. Scott was allowed to recover from Shepherd for the loss of his eye, since Shepherd’s original unlawful act would, according to the common experience of mankind, naturally result in injury to another person. In other words, Shepherd’s unlawful act started a chain reaction, the natural result of which was injury to Scott.
Isn’t it clear as crystal in reason, principle and authority, that the natural and reasonably foreseeable result of an attempted robbery — according to the common experience of mankind — is the shooting and killing of a human being — either a potential victim or an officer of the law or an innocent bystander or one of the robbers!*
To summarize: (1) Commonwealth v. Almeida, which was wisely decided in accordance with sound *657public policy and long and well established principles, of law, clearly and directly rules the instant case; (2) it has been reaffirmed and cited or quoted with approval by this Court in Commonwealth v. Bolish, 381 Pa., supra, pages 515-519; Commonwealth v. Phillips, 372 Pa. 223, 228, 93 A. 2d 455; and Commonwealth v. Lowry, 374 Pa. 594, 599, 98 A. 2d 733; and (3) it has become the well settled law of this Commonwealth.
In Commonwealth v. Bolish, 381 Pa., supra, this Court held that the felony murder doctrine applied where the defendant planned an arson and his accomplice or dupe was killed in the ensuing fire, and said (page 520) : “We may thus summarize what has become the settled law of Pennsylvania:* If a person with legal malice commits an act or sets off a chain of events from which, in the common experience of man-hind, the death of another is a natural or reasonably foreseeable result, that person is guilty of murder, if death results from that act or from the events which it naturally produced. If the original malicious act was arson, rape, robbery, burglary or kidnapping, the original actor is guilty of murder in the first degree.”
And Justice Jones himself recognized this test or standard in Commonwealth v. Almeida where he asserted the true test in felony murder cases was as follows (page 643) : “The jury . . . would . . . have to find . . . that the fatal shot was fired by one of the felons, or if not fired by one of them, that the conduct of the defendant or his accomplices set in motion a chain of events among whose reasonably foreseeable consequences was a hilling such as actually occurred.” In the light of that carefully considered statement of the *658law, how can anyone justify his present contradictory opinion?
How often, may we ask, must a Court state or expound important principles before they become stare decisis? As Lord Coke, Chief Justice of England, wisely said: “The knowne certaintie of the law is the safetie of all.” Such a principle makes for certainty and stability; an utter disregard for precedents or a changing of the rules to meet , the exigencies of each case as it arises, or any other similar principle produces uncertainty and confusion and brings the Law and the Courts into disrepute. See Opinion of Justice Owen J. Roberts in Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, page 669, 88 L. Ed. 987, 1000.

The Law of our Sister States

Justice Jones also contends that we should change the well settled law of Pennsylvania because four out of forty-seven of our sister States have refused to include justifiable homicide under the felony murder doctrine. The opinions of the highest Courts in our sister States are entitled to careful consideration, but we reserve the same right which we accord to them, namely, to agree with them when we believe they are sound and to differ with them when we believe they are unsound. In the instant case the dissenting opinions have failed to note that the prior Pennsylvania cases upon which they rely were .carefully analyzed and distinguished, and the decisions they now cite from other States were distinguished or disapproved by this Court in Commonwealth v. Almeida. Furthermore, that exhaustive opinion cites, quotes, and discusses many decisions .of this Court and of the Courts of our sister States which support that opinion and the subsequent decisions of this Court.
We must not turn back the clock. If there could be any reasonable doubt as to the meaning and applica*659tion of the felony murder doctrine, it should not be restricted by hair-splitting technicalities or illogical or unrealistic distinctions, the sole and inevitable effect of which is to absolve murderous robbers from the killings which are the natural and likely result of their felonious hold-ups. For the protection and welfare of the people of this Commonwealth, the public and the Courts must stop coddling criminals, young as well as old, otherwise the terrible brutal crime wave which is sweeping our State and Country will never be halted.

 This was a reiteration of the definition of murder laid down in Commonwealth v. Buzard, 365 Pa. 511, 516, 76 A. 2d 394. The definition of murder in Commonwealth v. Drum, 58 Pa. 9, 15, is today out-moded and confusing in that it would seemingly require the Commonwealth to prove that the accused was “a person of *646sound memory and discretion” and that the victim was a “reasonable” creature.

 A person who commits an excusable homicide (for example, self-defense), or an accidental or unintentional homicide (where no malice exists), or a justifiable homicide (where no malice exists, as for example, a jailer executing a murderer sentenced to death), is not guilty of murder or of any felony under the law of Pennsylvania; but an accidental killing or an unintentional killing or a justifiable killing of a felon or of the proposed victim of the felony or of a police officer or of an innocent bystander, if committed during the perpetration of. one of the enumerated statutory felonies, constitutes, under the authorities of' Pennsylvania, murder in the first degree.

 Italics throughout, mine.

 We note parenthetically that it represented the conviction of six members of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, after a thorough and exhaustive consideration, discussion and review of a myriad of cases and of principles of homicide as enunciated over the centuries by text authorities and judicial decisions, and it has since been affirmed three times by this Court.

 In Pennsylvania it is not necessary that defendant fire the fatal shots; a look-out or the driver of a get-away ear or an accomplice is liable for murder equally with the felon who did the actual killing: Commonwealth v. Lowry, 374 Pa. 594, 98 A. 2d 733; Commonwealth v. Robb, 284 Pa. 99, 130 A. 302; Commonwealth v. Micuso, 273 Pa. 474, 117 A. 211; Weston v. Commonwealth, 111 *652Pa. 251, 2 A. 191; Commonwealth v. Biddle, 200 Pa. 640, 50 A. 262; Commonwealth v. Boris, 287 Pa. 547, 135 A. 313; Commonwealth v. Byron, 357 Pa. 181, 53 A. 2d 736; Commonwealth v. Phillips, 372 Pa. 223, 93 A. 2d 455.

 Justice Musmanno admits that Commonwealth v. Almeida was correctly decided. Justice Jones seeks to undermine it by stating that it was based on “a palpable dictum as an examination of the record in the Moyer and Byron case will at once disclose”. Contrary to Justice Jones’s opinion, the record in that ease demonstrates and this Court in the Almeida case explicitly held that the aforesaid statement was not a dictum. The record in Commonwealth v. Moyer and Byron reads as follows: “Assignments of Eeeob. ... 2. The appellants respectfully assign for error the charge of the Court. . . . ‘We have made a distinction between intent to kill and that which is done in the perpetration of a robbery. That in itself is sufficient and that is the ruling of the Supreme Court on that particular question which we have submitted to you. All of the participants in an attempted robbery are guilty of murder in the first degree if someone is killed in the course of the perpetration of the first-named crime. That is the law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.’ ”
On the question of dictum, Chief Justice Maxey said (page 603) : “The factual issue the defendant raises in this case is identical with the factual issue raised by the defendants in Commonwealth v. Moyer and Byron, supra; to wit, who fired the fatal bullet — one of the robbers or a man who was lawfully resisting the criminal attack of the robbers? The legal question presented and decided in the Moyer-Byron case was precisely the legal question raised in the instant case; to wit, when men who are feloniously shot at by robbers return their fire in self-defense and a third person is killed by a shot fired by the defenders, are the robbers whose felonious action caused the shooting guilty of murder? In the Moyer-Byron case this Court after a thorough discussion of that question decided that under the facts of that ease, ‘The MoyerByron felonious invasion of the Shank gas station on July 13, 1946, was likewise the proximate cause of the resultant fatality.’ (191 of 357 Pa.) That was not dictum but authority. ‘Whenever a question fairly arises in the course of a trial, and there is a distinct decision thereon, the court’s ruling in respect thereto can’ in no sense be regarded as mere “dictum”.’ New York Cent. & H. R. R. Co. v. Price, 159 F. 330, 332, 86 C.C.A. 502, 16 L.R.A., N.S., 1103. . . . *654Our decision m Commonwealth v. Moyer and Byron, supra, is authority for our decision in this case.”
We agree with Chief Justice Maxey and his colleagues that Commonwealth v. Moyer and Byron, clearly ruled the Almeida case and that the specific ruling to that effect was not dictum nor was it an extension of the principles of the common law felony murder doctrine.

 Ancient and modern text authorities, sound public policy and prior decisions of this Court support and justify the majority opinion. If justice Jones is correct that the felony murder doctrine can be applied to the present facts only by an act of the legislature, common law or judge-made law could never be interpreted, expounded or extended or a conviction obtained thereunder if a case exactly on its facts had never been previously decided. This same argument was made and specifically rejected in Commonwealth, v. Almeida, 362 Pa., at pages 628 and 629.

 See also the authorities set forth in Commonwealth v. Moyer and Byron; Commonwealth v. Almeida; and Commonwealth v. Bolish.