Com. v. Thomas

• Decision Date: 19 March 1968
• Citation: 239 A.2d 354,429 Pa. 227
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Myer D. THOMAS, Appellant.

Page 354

239 A.2d 354

429 Pa. 227

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Myer D. THOMAS, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

March 19, 1968.

John Patrick Walsh, David N. Savitt, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Arlen Specter, Dist. Atty., Alan J. Davis, Asst. Dist. Atty., Chief, Appeals Division, Richard A. Sprague, First Asst. Dist. Atty., Roger F. Cox, Asst. Dist. Atty., Philadelphia, for appellee.

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

OPINION OF THE COURT

BELL, Chief Justice.

Defendant was indicted for robbery and murder; a jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree, with penalty fixed at life imprisonment. Defendant filed a motion in arrest of judgment and for a new trial, both of which were denied. The questions for decision are: (1) Did the evidence in favor of the Commonwealth prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was guilty of murder, and (2) was there any reversible trial error?

In Commonwealth v. Gockley, 411 Pa. 437, 192 A.2d 693, the Court aptly said: 'The law is well established that in considering the appeal of a defendant after a verdict or plea of guilty, the test of the sufficiency of the evidence is whether accepting as true all the evidence upon which, if believed, the jury could have properly based its verdict, such evidence is sufficient in law to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged.' Accord: Commonwealth v. Chester, 410 Pa. 45, 188 A.2d 323; Commonwealth v. Whiting, 409 Pa. 492, 187 A. 563.

The Evidence

We shall consider the evidence and the contentions of the defendant and of the Commonwealth in the light of these authorities.

The evidence proves (indeed, it is not disputed) that on December 14, 1962, defendant gained admission to the home of Helen Whalen, the deceased, by representing himself as a volunteer worker from the local church. At that time, Helen Whalen lived with her two elderly sisters, Agnes and Mary, and her brother Harry. Mary testified that both she and her brother were thrown to the ground by defendant and that Agnes was cut on the head by him. After Agnes asked defendant what he wanted and defendant's responding demand of money, Mary went upstairs to procure a box in which she had stored $25. Mary further testified that the defendant came upstairs, grabbed the box from her, and as they came down the stairs he kept trying to push her down, though unsuccessfully. Defendant ran from the house, warning Mary not to follow him; Mary nevertheless followed him and ran across the street and called the police. When she returned to their house she found Helen (her deceased sister) lying on the floor in the foyer area between the door and the foot of the stairs. Mary's testimony that Helen was lying on the floor with a large bump on her forehead and that she looked as if she had been beaten was corroborated by two police officers. Helen was taken immediately to a hospital and died there two and a half months later.

James Gilmore testified that before the robbery he had gone with defendant to the Whalen neighborhood and was told by defendant that he intended to rob the Whalen household. Gilmore further testified that they then separated but that some time later he saw defendant coming out of the Whalen household carrying a small metal box--later identified as the box containing the money stolen from the Whalens--and defendant told him he had knocked a lady down.

Dr. Axel K. Olsen, a Philadelphia Neurosurgeon, supervised the treatment of the deceased upon her admittance to Hahnemann Hospital. He testified that she had a contusion in her left forehead and in the right-back of the skull, accompanied by severe hemorrhaging. Dr. J. T. Weston, of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office, performed a post-mortem examination on the deceased and testified that the phenomena described by Dr. Olsen were attributable to trauma and that this trauma and resulting contusions of the head had the effect of impeding the circulatory musculature, and were the underlying cause of death.

Defandant's Motion in Arrest of Judgment

Defendant-appellant does not dispute any of the findings as to his identity as the robber, or the findings as to the aforesaid medical facts, or that they were the cause of death. Indeed, defendant's counsel did not even cross-examine the State's key witnesses on these points. What defendant does contend is that since there was no testimony (a) showing that he struck the decedent, or (b) that his actions in and during the robbery caused her to suffer the injuries which caused her death, there could be no finding, i.e., proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that he caused Helen Whalen's death.

We find no merit in this contention. The evidence undoubtedly proved (1) that defendant entered the Whalen home; (2) that he attacked and threw down two of the four residents of the Whalen home; (3) that he inflicted a cut on one of the others; (4) that the deceased was a spry, active woman in good health only moments before the robbery; and (5) that after Mary returned from having phoned the police she found her sister Helen prostrate on the floor of their home with a large bump on her head, from which she subsequently died.

Defendant contends that since no one saw him strike Helen and that neither Mary who preceded him down the stairs, nor any other members of the Whalen family testified that At that time or at any time before he left, they saw the deceased prostrate in the foyer, she could not have been in that condition at that time. However, this argument is not based upon any testimony but on an assumption by defendant. Neither Mary nor any witness testified that when Agnes descended the stairs or at any other time when defendant was in their home, Helen's body was not on the floor where she was later found, nor was any witness cross-examined on this point. Moreover, we repeat, the evidence showed that Helen had no prior history of fainting spells, nor was there any evidence of some other cause for her bumps and contusions. Furthermore, even if deceased fell without being struck by defendant and thereby suffered her contusions due to fright caused by seeing defendant beat her sisters and brother, defendant would still be criminally responsible for death under the felony murder doctrine. Commonwealth v. Melton, 406 Pa. 343, 349, 178 A.2d 728.

In the last analysis, defendant is contending that he cannot be convicted on circumstantial evidence. Of course that is not the law. Commonwealth v. Chester, 410 Pa. 45, 188 A.2d 323, supra; Commonwealth v. Whiting, 409 Pa. 492, 187 A. 563, supra. Commonwealth v. Sauders, 390 Pa. 379, 387, 134 A.2d 890. In Commonwealth v. Chester, the Court said in 410 Pa. at page 50, 188 A.2d at page 327: 'In a homicide case, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) a death has occurred, (2) that the death resulted from criminal agency, and (3) that the defendant is legally responsible for the death. See Commonwealth v. Gardner, 282 Pa. 458, 128 A. 87 (1925). The Commonwealth, however, is not restricted to direct proof of these elements but, on the contrary, circumstantial evidence alone may suffice so long as the inferences arising therefrom prove the fact in question beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Sauders, 390 Pa. 379, 134 A.2d 890 (1957); Commonwealth v. Kloiber, 378 Pa. 412, 106 A.2d 820.'

New Trial

Defendant's alternative ground for reversal is that he was denied a fair trial in that the Court's charge to the jury was prejudicial. Sp...