Commonwealth v. Brandler
| Decision Date | 12 July 1923 |
| Docket Number | 125-1923 |
| Citation | 81 Pa.Super. 585 |
| Parties | Commonwealth v. Brandler, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Argued April 9, 1923
Appeal by defendant, from judgment of Q. S. Erie Co.-1922, No. 9, on verdict of guilty in the case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Christian Brandler.
Indictment for larceny. Before Hirt, J.
The opinion of the Superior Court states the case.
Verdict of guilty upon which judgment of sentence was passed. Defendant appealed.
Errors assigned were various rulings on evidence, and refusal to direct a verdict in favor of the defendant.
Affirmed.
S. Y Rossiter, for appellant.
M Levant Davis, and with him Otto Herbst, Assistant District Attorney, and C. Arthur Blass, District Attorney, for appellee.
Before Porter, Henderson, Trexler, Keller, Linn and Gawthrop, JJ.
The appellant was convicted of larceny. He had been employed as receiving and shipping clerk and salesman in a store in which men's and women's clothing were sold at wholesale. The evidence fully sustains a finding by the jury that he feloniously stole and carried away certain goods from his employer's premises. As stated by his able counsel in his printed argument, the assignments of error raise chiefly questions of evidence.
Samuel Caplin, a coemployee of the defendant and a witness for the Commonwealth, testified that he watched the movements of the defendant and saw him taking goods out of the store in the evening after the store was closed. He was asked why he was watching the defendant and answered, over the objection of defendant's counsel, that prior to that time goods had been missed from the store. It is urged, under the first assignment of error, that the admission of this testimony was highly prejudicial to the defendant because it suggested that he had been guilty of other offenses not connected with the one for which he was being tried. We think that the answer is subject to no such imputation. It did not even tend to connect the defendant with any other crimes, if any had been committed, and therefore, at most, was harmless error.
The second assignment charges error in sustaining an objection to the following question put to the witness, Caplin, on cross-examination:"
Q. You had followed him up; you had seen he had goods in his car over there at his house. Why didn't you get the detectives then and get him red handed right there at his own home with the goods?" We are not convinced that this ruling was prejudicial to the defendant, because, when the witness testified that on the next night he saw the defendant come out of the store with a large package, the defendant's counsel asked him why he did not arrest the defendant at that time and the answer was " that he didn't feel like it just then."
The third, fourth and tenth assignments complain that the Commonwealth was permitted to prove the oral admissions of guilt made by the defendant on the night of his arrest, as well as to introduce parts of a signed confession of guilt of the crimes charged in the indictments. It is well settled that all admissions of guilt by the defendant, when voluntarily made, are admissible against him. The fact that the oral admissions were subsequently reduced to writing does not render the oral statements inadmissible. When the signed confession was first offered by the Commonwealth, the court inspected it and admitted only the parts thereof relating to the matters charged in the indictment. The parts inculpating the defendant as to crimes not charged in the indictment were excluded. While the admission of the written confession in this form was...
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...entered because defense withdrew objection to admission), rev'd on other grounds, 380 Pa. 43, 110 A.2d 193 (1955); Commonwealth v. Brandler, 81 Pa.Super. 585 (1923) (while written confession "should have been admitted or rejected as a whole," defendant's objection to partial admission unfou......
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Commonwealth v. Dolan. Commonwealth
...confessing their guilt. Such testimony is not inadmissible though the confession is later reduced to writing. Commonwealth v. Brandler, 81 Pa.Super. 585. But the written confessions signed by two of these defendants should have been received in evidence. A written statement has no higher ev......
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... ... E. Graham, Assistant ... District Attorney, for appellee. -- The argument for new ... trial was correctly heard by the trial judge alone: Com ... v. Toth, 145 Pa. 308 ... The ... complete confessions of defendants were admissible: Com ... v. Brandler, 81 Pa.Super. 585; Goersen v. Com., 99 Pa ... The ... defendants' confession of a subsequent robbery in which ... they used a pistol stolen at the homicide, was admissible: ... Com. v. Haines, 257 Pa. 289; Com. v. Weiss, ... 284 Pa. 105; Com. v. Robb, 284 Pa. 99; Com. v ... ...
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...competent as extrajudicial, though oral, admissions or confessions of guilt upon the part of the defendant. Commonwealth v. Brandler, 81 Pa.Super. 585; Commonwealth v. Dolan, 155 Pa.Super. 453, 458, 38 A.2d 497. It was permissible for the witness to refer to the transcribed copy of his note......