Court Opinion

ID: 9650637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:47:28.731174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:24.736937
License: Public Domain

*311Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
The Majority Opinion in this case says: “As long as we are to have the death penalty in Pennsylvania certainly this is a clear ease for its imposition.” It is indeed difficult to imagine a more flagrant violation of law and order than the assassination of a judge sitting in Court — provided, of course, the killer is sane. If the heinousness of the act is to dictate the punishment, regardless of sanity or insanity, then Norman W. Moon ¡should be executed. But, as long as we have in Pennsylvania the rule that an insane person should not be executed, certainly this is the case to apply it. I would think that the very act of ¡shooting a judge suggests insanity at the outset. The Majority thinks otherwise.
In addition, hoAvever, to the outer aspects of the case, we have the findings of a Sanity Commission, duly appointed by the Court, which unanimously found: “a. Norman W. Moon is in fact mentally ill. b. Norman W. Moon’s mental illness is that of dementia praeeox of the paranoid type. c. This illness is chronic and continuing, d. Norman W. Moon is a proper ¡subject for commitment to a mental hospital.”
The lower Court which appointed the commission, after lauding the abilities and integrity of its members, declined to follow its recommendations. This Court, on appeal, affirmed the declination. (388 Pa. 205). I dissented from this Court’s decision and I still believe that, in accordance -with the Commission’s recommendations, the defendant should be committed to a mental hospital until such time as he will have regained sanity, when the matter of the verdict against him in the trial for murder may be disposed of in accordance with law and justice.
In my Dissenting Opinion (388 Pa. 219-231), I pointed out, as further evidence of Moon’s insanity, the fact that he had set out to kill two other judges against whom he could not have had a sane animosity, namely, *312Judge Gunther of the Superior Court, who had not written any Opinion against Moon, and the writer of this Opinion who had never theretofore participated in any way in any decision involving Moon. Moon had also tried to kill the district attorney of Warren County as well as the court stenographer, with neither of whom had he had any quarrel. And then he tried to kill himself, (a deed which could not possibly have brought him any advantage) by shooting himself in the neck. Moon was a man who had gone berserk. There was no rhyme, reason, purpose, or objective to his actions, so obviously maniacal. In my previous Dissenting Opinion I showed how the lower Court ignored the findings of a highly trained and qualified commission made up of two experienced doctors and a lawyer, and founded its conclusion mostly on the testimony of lay prison guards who were considerably limited in their appraisement of the subject of whom they spoke. I still believe the Court’s action to have been serious error.
This is a case where the Courts should have been extremely cautious in reaching their conclusions so that it could not be said, no matter how incorrectly, that they were influenced in their decision by the fact that a judge had been killed.
Defendant’s counsel in this appeal complains also of various trial errors. Without expressing my views on all the reasons advanced for a new trial, I wish to indicate my agreement with counsel’s complaint that the prosecuting attorney improperly introduced in evidence a photograph of the body of Judge Wade, as it lay on the courtroom floor after the shooting. I believe that defense counsel is justified in complaining, as he does in his brief:
“The prosecuting attorney advanced two reasons in support of the offer: (1) to show the location of the *313body in the courtroom; and (2) to -show the location of the bullet wounds in vital parts causing death.
“Obviously the exhibit had no probative value and was not admissible under the first ground advanced. The testimony shows that the photograph does not depict the position or location of the body at the time of his death. The body had been moved, and the clothing had also been arranged so as to display prominently the gruesome spectacle of blood stains...
“With respect to the second reason advanced in support of the offer, it is obvious that Exhibit 4 was merely cumulative. It was not necessary to offer the photograph in order to prove the corpus delicti or cause of death.
“Before the photograph was offered, the Coroner had testified with respect to this point: ‘Q. What was the cause of death? A. Two wounds on the left side between, about at the elbow (Witness indicating on his own body) made by bullets.’
“This testimony was subsequently elaborated and the witness illustrated his testimony adequately by indicating the location of the bullet marks on his own body. . .
“Thus the real purpose of offering the photograph was manifestly to shock and horrify the jury. For this purpose, as the trial Court concedes and as the decisions of this Court have often emphasized, the exhibit should not have been admitted. It should have ■been excluded as inflammatory and undoubtedly prejudicial to defendant.”