Com. v. Eddington

• Decision Date: 28 April 1978
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. David Allen ETI Appeal of Raymond Joseph MORETTI.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

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386 A.2d 117 255 Pa.Super. 25 COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania
v.
David Allen ETI Appeal of Raymond Joseph MORETTI. Superior Court of Pennsylvania. Submitted June 13, 1977.
Decided April 28, 1978.

[255 Pa.Super. 26] John C. Marston, Cornwells Heights, for appellant.

Stephen B. Harris, First Asst. Dist. Atty., Warrington, and Kenneth G. Biehn, Dist. Atty., Doylestown, for Commonwealth, appellee.

Before WATKINS, President Judge, and JACOBS, HOFFMAN, CERCONE, PRICE, VAN der VOORT and SPAETH, JJ.

SPAETH, Judge:

Appellant and three codefendants were convicted of burglary, theft and conspiracy. On appeal, appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence.

In appraising the sufficiency of evidence, we must apply a two-step test. First we must regard the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, accepting as true all evidence upon which the fact finder could properly have based its verdict; then we must ask whether that evidence, with all reasonable inferences

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from it, was sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Thomas, 465 Pa. 442, 350 A.2d 847 (1976); Commonwealth v. Oates, 448 Pa. 486, 295 A.2d 337 (1972). Guilt may be proved by wholly circumstantial evidence, Commonwealth v. Cimaszewki, 447 Pa. 141, 288 A.2d 805 (1972); Commonwealth v. Santana, 216 Pa.Super. 183, 264 A.2d 724 [255 Pa.Super. 27] (1970), but it may not be conjectured, Commonwealth v. Bailey, 448 Pa. 224, 292 A.2d 345 (1972).

Regarded in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the evidence may be summarized as follows.

On November 13, 1975, at about 2:30 a. m., Officers Christopher McAteer and David Kane of the Bristol Township Police Department were on routine patrol; it was raining heavily. As they approached the Midway Shopping Center, McAteer saw a man carrying a large box emerge from an alley; the man placed the box on the ground about a foot away from the back of an old Cadillac hearse parked in the street. McAteer saw that as the man put the box down his face was directed toward the police car, and that he turned immediately and walked back into the alley. ¹

The officers circled the block. When they returned to the alley, they noticed that the box was no longer behind the hearse but had been moved under the awning of one of the buildings at the corner of the street and the alley. The officers also saw four men walking in a group down the alley toward the street. One of them was appellant. While McAteer stopped...