Court Opinion

ID: 9736511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:58:36.691196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:07.128666
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Musmanno :
The Majority Opinion says that in order for an utterance to be admitted as part of the res gestae, it must be one which precludes the possibility of premeditation and consideration. The Majority says further that the passage of time does not invalidate the utterance, nor does the fact that it is made in answer to a question render it any less spontaneous and admissible in evidence. After laying down these indisputable standards of proof, standards which are overwhelmingly met by the facts in this case, the Majority surprisingly declares that the statement made by John Krall was inadmissible. This non sequitur is disturbing.
The authority quoted by the Majority in support of its unusual position could well be cited to establish the opposite of what the Majority contends for it. In the case of Haas v. Kasnot, 371 Pa. 580, the circumstances were entirely dissimilar from those which surround the Krall utterance. Chief Justice Horace Steen, in writing the Opinion for the Court in the Haas case reasoned (without, of course, knowing this case would come over the horizon of the future) that were the facts there like those we know in fact exist here, the statement would have been admissible. Chief Justice Steen said: “There was no testimony to show *551that he was injured, excited, or in a state of either physical or mental shock.” In the case at bar there was overwhelming evidence of injury, excitement, physical and mental shock. The Majority’s own recitation of the facts speak vividly and loudly of injury, excitement, physical and mental shock. I will quote from the Majority Opinion: “Steiner testified: ‘He (Krall) was in very bad shape. He didn’t have any clothes on, outside of a pair of trousers, and he was holding them in front of him. His face were severely burned, his hair all burned off, with the exception of a quarter of an inch remaining, and it was all singed. The officer further testified that Krall was not able to see very well, his eyes were swollen and his eyelashes were burned off; that he placed Krall in the police car to take him to the hospital, that he tried to place a blanket over him, but found it impossible to do because ‘the pain was too terrific’; that on the way to the hospital he kept asking Krall ‘. . . questions, and he would answer as best he could. I asked him what happened, and he tried to explain.’ ” (Italics in Majority Opinion)
Would a person in Krall’s horrible state as here described be likely to deliberate, reflect, weigh, counterweigh and concoct evidence in anticipation of some possible lawsuit? We have said many times that: “No definite time-limit or distance from the crime or event in issue can be fixed by the Courts to determine what spontaneous utterances are admissible; each case must depend, on its own facts and circumstances: Commonwealth v. Gardner, 282 Pa., supra; Commonwealth v. Stallone, 281 Pa. 41, 126 A. 56.” (Com. v. Noble, 371 Pa. 138, 145.)*
What are the facts and circumstances in this case? In the early morning of July 25, 1951, on a State high*552way near Butler, Pennsylvania, a Packard automobile, a truck and a huge tractor-trailer (the kind used for transporting automobiles) crashed into one another with such force and violence that all three vehicles were demolished. The wreckage burst into flame and as a consequence of both the crash and the fire a grown woman and two small children were instantly killed. Five other persons were seriously injured. From the flaming catastrophe John Krall emerged more dead than alive; his clothes had been ripped from his body, his face was a mass of burns, what was left of his burned hair smoldered, he was partly blinded, his eyes were swollen, his eyelashes were gone. His nude body was so seared and raw with burns and lacerations that he could not stand even the weight of a blanket — “the pain was too terrific.” The police officer Steiner testified that when he arrived on the scene — “The road was blocked, and as I broke over the hill I saw the fire truck setting in the road, and smoke was going in the air, and steam, and the road was littered with everything you can think of; clothing; there was a little coaster wagon; basket, suitcases; and the one truck, the car carrier, was setting on the guard railing, the trailer sticking part way out of the road; everything in a mess.”
From this disaster and horror, John Krall was lifted into a car to be taken to the hospital. The officer rode with him and asked questions to which Krall gave answers. To assume that while in this torture of pain, misery and intolerable hurt, Krall was capable of fabricating a story is simply to defy physical realities and to ascribe to the human brain a deviousness entirely out of keeping with human experience and observation. The picture of John Krall without clothing, bleeding, stunned and his whole body undergoing indescribable suffering is one which negatives every *553suggestion of invented replies and calculated answers. If any mental faculty worked it could only be that of memory and it functioned simply as a phonograph record being spun on the table of a trance-like state under the needle of the officer’s questioning. His response could only be automatic and as spontaneous as a cry of pain from a lacerating wound or blow.
The Majority Opinion says that Krall’s statement “was not occasioned by any emotional or impulsive outburst, but consisted of a considered narration of his idea as to how the accident happened.” There is not a word in the record which can substantiate the conclusion of the Majority that Krall’s statement was a “considered narrative”. In Powe v. Pittsburgh Rys. Co., 303 Pa. 533, 536, we said: “It is well recognized that the judicial idea of matters within the res gestae rule is broader under our American decisions than under the very restricted interpretation employed by English Courts: Chapman on Evidence, page 22 . . . ‘That utterances must be strictly contemporaneous with the exciting cause, to be within the rule, is a fallacy1 they may be subsequent to it provided there is not time for the exciting influence to lose its sway and be dissipated . . . Furthermore, there is no definite and fixed limit of time. Each case must depend upon its own facts’: Wigmore, supra, section 1750 . . .”
Although much has been said on the subject of res gestae, the question keeps constantly recurring as to whether a given utterance falls within the limits of the indicated salutary rule. No one can speak with infallible wisdom in this field of the law, and yet it would seem that the problem to be resolved is one which should not fail to respond : to the most' natural and normal inquiry, namely, Were the circumstances of the case such as to preclude the possibility of a shrewd and self-calculating answer? As I read the testimony in *554this case, I am convinced that John Krall’s replies to the questions advanced by the police officer were as devoid of guile as those coming from the lips of a man in extremis. I can gain much reassurance in this conclusion from reading what this Court said in the case of Com. v. Harris, 351 Pa. 325, 336: “The mere fact that the statement of the victim was in response to a question did not make it mvoluntary and did not destroy that spontaneity which is the characteristic of a res gestae declaration. When anyone suddenly meets a person who has just been severely injured, he naturally asks: What happened to you?’ or Who shot you?’ and when the latter immediately replies, his statement is no more open to the charge of being a fabrication than the same statement would be if there had been no question asked. It would be a totally unwarranted handicap to the administration of justice if res gestae declarations, which are usually of great probative value, were excluded because a simple, natural question was put to the fatally injured victim a few minutes after the occurrence of the tragic event. Victims of unexpected assaults are not likely while suffering the agonies of a murderous assault just made upon them to fabricate a lie as to the identity of their assailant. The real test of the admissibility of a declaration as res gestae is whether the circumstances under which it was made were such as seem to preclude premeditation and design on the part of the declarant. The declaration made in the instant case by a grievously assaulted man, at the place of the assault and apparently only a few moments after it was made and while his assailant was apparently still nearby, fully met the test of admissibility. The declaration obviously emanated directly from the perceptions of the victim while his mind was still under the domination of the shock of the sudden assault. At that *555tragic moment he would not be likely to fabricate a falsehood in respect to what he had just experienced, for at such a time considerations of calculated policy are not in the ascendant.”

 (italics mine unless otherwise indicated.)