Com. v. Kloiber

• Decision Date: 29 December 1953
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. KLOIBER (two cases).
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

Page 444

101 A.2d 444 174 Pa.Super. 483 COMMONWEALTH
v.
KLOIBER (two cases). Superior Court of Pennsylvania. Dec. 29, 1953.

[174 Pa.Super. 485] Everett Kent, Bangor, Theordore R. Gardner, Allentown, for appellants.

George J. Joseph, First Asst. Dist. Atty., M. Jack Morgan, Dist. Atty., Allentown, for appellee.

[174 Pa.Super. 484]

Page 445

Before RHODES, P. J., and HIRT, RENO, ROSS, GUNTHER, WRIGHT and WOODSIDE, Jj.

[174 Pa.Super. 485] WOODSIDE, Judge.

The appellants in these cases were convicted by a jury of robbery. The evidence showed that at 12:35 P.M. February 29, 1952, two men entered the R. & F. Dress Company Office in Allentown, and at gun point took the payroll of $2,556.67 from the bookkeeper and the president. The two escaped in a waiting car driven by a third party.

The defendants, together with one Michael Senkovich, an escapee from the Bucks County Jail, were subsequently arrested and charged with the offense. Michael Senkovich and the defendant, Stephen Kloiber, were alleged to have been the two armed men who entered the premises; the defendant, William Kloiber, was alleged to have been the driver of the car used in the crime.

Senkovich and Stephen Kloiber, upon apprehension, gave signed statements to the Pennsylvania State Police, admitting participation in the robbery. Both were identified at the trial by the company bookkeeper and the company president as the two men who had entered the office and seized the payroll, although on two previous occasions these witnesses had failed to identify them as the holdup men. Senkovich entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced by the Court. Subsequently the appellants entered pleas of not guilty, and their cases were consolidated and tried jointly by a jury before[174 Pa.Super. 486] Judge James F. Henninger. A verdict of guilty was found as to both defendants on all counts. Both filed motions for a new trial. Following argument thereon, the motions were dismissed by the lower court and sentences were imposed. These are appeals from the judgments and sentences.

Appellants object to the failure of the lower court to grant their request for separate trials. The propriety of consolidating indictments for trial is a matter for the trial court to determine in the exercise of a sound discretion, and the appellate courts will not reverse except for a clear abuse of such discretion. Commonwealth v. Mulroy, 1943, 154 Pa.Super. 410, 412, 36 A.2d 337, and cases cited therein. Here, both defendants were...