Commonwealth v. Cameron

• Citation: 42 Pa.Super. 347
• Decision Date: 03 March 1910
• Docket Number: 36-1910
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Cameron, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

42 Pa.Super. 347

Commonwealth v. Cameron, Appellant

No. 36-1910

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

March 3, 1910

Argued October 27, 1909 [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter]

Appeal by defendant, from judgment of Q. S. Allegheny Co.-1906, No. 585, on verdict of guilty in case of Commonwealth v. Charles S. Cameron.

Indictment under sec. 9 of the Act of May 23, 1874, P. L. 230, for offering a bribe to a councilman.

At the trial the jury returned a verdict of guilty, upon which judgment of sentence was passed.

The court subsequently overruled a motion in arrest of judgment, Van Swearingen, J., specially presiding, filing an opinion in which he stated the facts to be as follows:

In the summer of 1906 an ordinance was introduced into the select branch of councils of the city of Pittsburg, providing for the granting of a franchise to the Pittsburg & Tube City Railroad Company to build its line of steam railroad through portions of the city of Pittsburg, beginning at Fourth avenue and Try street and extending thence eastwardly in Allegheny county to the city of McKeesport. Upon the ordinance being introduced into councils it was referred in the ordinary course of business to the joint committee of councils on corporations. This joint committee was composed of twenty-three members, including the chairman of each branch of councils. One of the members of the common branch of councils and a member of the joint committee on corporations was W. A. Martin. About the time this ordinance was introduced into councils and referred to the joint committee on corporations, a meeting was brought about between the said W. A. Martin and the president of the said railroad company, Charles S. Cameron. At that meeting Martin was asked his opinion relative to said ordinance, and as a result of the conference, Cameron suggested that he would give Martin the sum of $ 50,000 if Martin would use his influence in helping to get the ordinance passed through councils. Martin did not accept that proposition at that time, but asked for a week in which to consider it. Later, Martin went back to Cameron and told him he would take $ 60,000, and use his influence to secure the passage of the ordinance. This proposition was accepted by Cameron, who agreed to give Martin the $ 60,000 when the ordinance should have passed councils and been approved by the mayor of the city. Negotiations were had from time to time, and some dissatisfaction arose relative to the matter, and in the course of these negotiations Cameron offered to give Martin $ 70,000 for his influence in securing the passage and approval of the ordinance, and agreed that if councils passed the ordinance and it was vetoed by the mayor and Martin then secured the passage of the ordinance over the veto of the mayor, Cameron would give him $ 80,000 for his efforts in that behalf. All these facts were established at the trial.

Cameron was indicted under the ninth section of the Act of May 23, 1874, P. L. 230, relative to cities in this state, which reads as follows: " Any person who shall, directly or indirectly, offer, give or promise, any money or thing of value, testimonial, privilege or personal advantage, to any member of councils to influence him in the performance of any of his public or official duties, shall be guilty of bribery and be punished in such manner as that offense is by law punishable."

When the case was called for trial the defendant entered the following plea in bar of the prosecution: " And Now, January 11, 1909, comes Charles S. Cameron, a citizen of the United States and of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in his own proper person, into court here, and having heard the said indictment read, and protesting that he is not guilty, says, that the said Commonwealth ought not further to prosecute the said indictment against him, Charles S. Cameron, because he says that heretofore, to wit, on the sixteenth day of December, 1906, in a certain prosecution by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, against W. A. Martin, on a charge of corrupt solicitation of members of the Councils of the city of Pittsburg, which said charge was being heard by Police Magistrate Frank J. Brady, this defendant was duly subpoenaed by the Commonwealth, and was called as a witness to testify in the said case; that upon being sworn and interrogated, this defendant declined to answer the questions put to him, because said answers would tend to incriminate himself, and in this refusal defendant persisted; whereupon the Commonwealth caused information to be made against this defendant for contempt and obstructing public justice, by reason of his said refusal to testify; that an indictment was found on said information at No. 49, December Sessions, 1906, of this Honorable Court; that this defendant was tried on said indictment and found guilty thereof, the trial court ruling that by reason of the character of the charge in which he was called to testify being bribery, and the constitutional provisions of this Commonwealth relating thereto, this defendant was not exempt from giving evidence tending to incriminate himself; that thereafter, and by reason of the judgment so rendered against this defendant, he was called again as a witness in the case of the Commonwealth v. Flaherty and Millholland, before said Police Magistrate Frank J. Brady, on a charge of conspiracy to bribe, and so thereupon was again asked by the Commonwealth certain questions tending to incriminate himself, and this defendant then and there asserted and claimed his privilege under the bill of rights and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, by refusing to give evidence incriminating himself, but defendant was then and there compelled to answer and did answer certain questions which incriminated himself in the criminal charges then and there being heard. Wherefore this defendant saith, that, because of the aforesaid action of the Commonwealth in compelling him to so testify as aforesaid to matters and things incriminating himself in the present charge of which he stands indicted, he thereby, under the Constitution of this Commonwealth and the Constitution of the United States, became then and there immune and exempt from indictment and prosecution for the corrupt solicitation charged in this present indictment, which is the same charge whereof he was compelled to incriminate himself. For a further special plea defendant saith, that section 32, article III, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, unless it be held and construed to grant and secure to this defendant full and absolute immunity from prosecution for the matters and things whereof the defendant was compelled to incriminate himself under said constitutional provision, is in conflict with and violative of defendant's rights as a citizen of the United States and a citizen of this Commonwealth, under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, as not being due process of law as therein secured and guaranteed. Wherefore defendant prays judgment that he may be discharged."

To this plea of the defendant the commonwealth demurred. We sustained the demurrer, and the defendant was convicted by the jury. None of the testimony given by the defendant before the police magistrate was used against him, and no reference thereto was made in any manner whatever upon the trial. The conviction of the defendant was had upon testimony wholly distinct and apart therefrom. The matter is now before us on motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment, both motions being grounded in substance on the refusal of the court to sustain the defendant's plea in bar.

Errors assigned among others were in sustaining the commonwealth's demurrer to the special plea in denying motion in arrest of judgment and in imposing the sentence quoted in the opinion of the Superior Court.

Sentence reversed.

A. S. L. Shields and C. A. O'Brien, of O'Brien & Ashley, for appellant. -- The constitution of Pennsylvania, as properly understood and interpreted, protects the appellant from prosecution for any matter, thing or alleged crime disclosed by him under the compulsory requirement of art. III, sec. 32.

A constitutional provision stands on a different footing from a statute. The constitution is a sublimated kind of common law, universal in its application and to be liberally construed. A statute, according to our theory, is an intrusion upon common law; a modification of, or exception to it; and unless it clearly and unmistakably alters the common law, the broad general principle of the common law must prevail: Cooley on Const. Limitations (6th ed.), 311, 313; 2 Story on Const. (5th ed.), 623, 627; State v. Height, 117 Iowa 650 (91 N.W. 935); Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591 (16 S.Ct. 644).

Suppose, however, for a moment that the bill of rights and the rest of the constitution stand on an exact equality, we have here then the provision, bill of rights, sec. 9: " In all criminal prosecutions the accused hath a right to be heard by himself and counsel, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him, to meet the witnesses face to face, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor. He cannot be compelled to give evidence against himself, nor can he be deprived of his life, liberty or property, unless by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

The meaning of this article is perfectly plain. It sets the commonwealth on one side and the accused person on the other, and it declares that the commonwealth must prove its case before the jury without assistance from the accused.

No doubt the theoretical objections to these constitutional provisions have considerable weight. The same objections also apply to the doctrine...