Commonwealth v. Embry

• Decision Date: 07 January 1971
• Citation: Commonwealth v. Embry, 441 Pa. 183, 272 A.2d 178 (Pa. 1971)
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Terry EMBRY, Richard Coles and Michael Young, Appellants.

Page 178

272 A.2d 178

441 Pa. 183

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Terry EMBRY, Richard Coles and Michael Young, Appellants.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Jan. 7, 1971.

George H. Ross, Public Defender, H. David Rothman, Pittsburgh, for appellants.

Robert W. Duggan, Dist. Atty., Carol Mary Los, Asst. Dist. Atty., Robert L. Campbell, Asst. Dist. Atty., Pittsburgh, for appellee.

Before BELL, C.J., and JONES, COHEN, EAGEN, O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, and POMEROY, JJ.

OPINION

JONES, Justice.

This is a direct appeal from the imposition of a life sentence following a jury determination that appellants, all of whom were represented by court-appointed counsel, were guilty of murder in the first degree.

On the morning of December 20, 1967, around 10:45 a.m., Hattie Littlestone, seventy-one years of age, was set upon and robbed of her purse by three youths. In the ensuing struggle to prevent the pursesnatching, she fell to the ground and the youths fled. Miss Littlestone was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. While a variety of contentions are raised, because of our disposition of this appeal we can confine our discussion to one point: whether sufficient evidence was introduced to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hattie Littlestone's death was Caused by a criminal agency.

In Com. v. Radford, 428 Pa. 279, 236 A.2d 802 (1968), we clearly indicated that proof of causation must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. Attempting to meet this burden, the Chief Forensic Pathologist for the Coroner's Office of Allegheny County, Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., who performed the autopsy, testified for the prosecution that the sole cause of death was a myocardial infarction, commonly termed a 'heart attack.' Despite the existence of a past history of cardiacrelated problems, ^* Dr. Wecht further opined, 'with a reasonable degree of medical certainty,' that the myocardial infarction was caused by physical and emotional stress occasioned by the purse snatching and ensuing struggle. No other evidence was presented by the Commonwealth to directly link the purse snatching with Miss Littlestone's death.

Upon cross-examination by the defense attorneys as well as questioning by the trial judge, Dr. Wecht expressly admitted that while he was positively certain that death occurred due to the infarction, he was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the struggle produced the stress which, in turn, could have caused the myocardial infarction. Instead, he was only able...