Commonwealth v. Collazo

• Decision Date: 21 May 1962
• Citation: 180 A.2d 903,407 Pa. 494
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Rafael COLLAZO, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

180 A.2d 903

407 Pa. 494

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Rafael COLLAZO, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 21, 1962.

George F. Douglas, Jr., Carlisle, for appellant.

Richard C. Snelbaker, Asst. Dist. Atty., Harold S. Irwin, Jr., Dist Atty., Carlisle, for appellee.

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

MUSMANNO, Justice.

This is one of those homicidal cases where life has been treated as if it were something paltry, instead, as it really is, the all-pervading motif of the universe. As the result of an absurd altercation, which involved no important factual, and certainly no moral issue, between the contestants, life was destroyed and the destoryer has become a criminal. The convicted destroyer now appeals to this Court seeking the freedom which he himself threw away when he plunged his knife into the heart of his adversary. He claims that the Judge at his trial imporperly instructed the jury which convicted him.

The facts follow. An hour or so after midnight on November 3, 1960 Miguel Ruis, the victim of the mortal attack, and Rafael Collazo, the deadly assailant, staged a short combat in an apple orchard at Pennsylvania Farms, near Mechanicsburg, in the vicinity of a large two-story building used by migrant workers as living quarters. It appears that Ruis and a certain Anibal Matos had arranged for the latter to drive Ruis to Harrisburg. However, before they could embark on their trip, a certain Alphonzo Lopez, another migrant worker, took Matos's car on an errand of his own and damaged it. When Ruis learned of this he seized a wooden stake measuring 28 inches long, 3/4ths of an inch thick, 2 1/2 inches wide at one end and tapering, 7 inches from the other end, to a point for driving into the ground. With this stake he set out to chastise Lopez, and, finding him, began to beat him.

Into this cheap, rapidly-moving melodrama now entered a character named Elijah Leary, known also as Big Larry. He pulled Ruis away from Lopez and led him to his own car, promising to make up for the deficiency caused by Matos's misadventure, by driving him himself to Harrisburg. When they arrived at Big Larry's car, Larry opened the door to have Ruis enter. At this time and place the defendant Rafael Collazo entered into the act. For no reason that is apparent in the record he began to argue with Ruis and Ruis argued back. This debate was conducted in Spanish and since Big Larry, who was the only hearing witness present, did not understand Spanish, the details of the wordy wrangle have not been vouchsafed to posterity.

At his own trial Collazo said that Ruis was berating him because he had taken Lopez's side in the argument between Ruis and Lopez. Ruis reinforced his side of the argument with the stick in his hand, applying blows to Collazo's face and shoulders, but Collazo brought the debate quickly to an end with an irrefutable refutation by whipping out a butcher knife from under his shirt, driving it through Ruis's ribs and sheathing it in his heart. As Ruis fell, Collazo leaped astride him apparently to make certain that he had truly ended the argument.

On this showing of facts the District Attorney of Cumberland County, where the killing occurred, concluded that he could not hope for a conviction on the charge of murder and he accordingly asked the Grand Jury of the county to return an indictment of voluntary manslaughter, which it did. The defendant was tried under this indictment and convicted.

In the lower court he filed motions for a new trial and arrest of judgment. Both motions were refused and the defendant was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for a term of not less than five nor more than ten years. On his appeal to this Court the defendant asks only for a new trial, contending that the Trial Judge did not properly charge the jury with regard to the right of the defendant to stand his ground when Ruis began to hit with the stick. The Judge charged the jury:

'It is certainly true that every citizen may rightfully traverse the street or may stand in all proper places and need not flee from everyone who chooses to assail him. Without this freedom our liberties would be worthless but the law does not apply this right to homicide. The question here does not involve the right of mere ordinary defense, or the right to stand wherever you may rightfully be, but it concerns the right of one man to take the life of another. Ordinary defense in the killing of another evidently stands upon a different footing. When it comes to a question whether one man shall flee or another shall live, the law decides that the former shall flee rather than the latter may die.'

This is practically a carbon copy of what Justice Agnew said in his famous charge in the case of Commonwealth v. Drum, 58 Pa. 9, which is regarded more or less as a classic in Pennsylvania's law on the subject of homicide. One can doubt, however, without being disrespectful to the memory of the distinguished jurist, whether jurors, unequipped with an extensive vocabulary and unfamiliar with legalistic terms, could readily understand all of the erudite language in which Justice Agnew's charge was dressed. For instance, one can inquire whether the average man-on-the-street would comprehend what the learned Justice meant when he scholastically said that the act of the slayer 'must not be entirely disproportionate to the assault made upon him.'

There are other expositions in Justice Agnew's charge which are veiled in a phraseology which might or might not be penetrated by a non-technical mind. For instance:

'In such case it requires a great disparity of size and strength on the part of the slayer, and a very violent assault on the part of his assailant, to excuse it. The disparity on the one hand, and the violence on the other, must be such as to convince the jury that great bodily harm, if not death, might have been suffered, unless the slayer had thus defended himself, or that the slayer had a reasonable ground to think it would be so.'

Charges to juries should not be scholarly jurisprudential essays, intended primarily to convince the appellate court that the subject in controversy was appropriately treated. They should be simple directions to guide the jury along the thoroughfare of a correct factual decision. They should instruct with the simplicity of directional markers along the highway. In this respect, it may properly be said that, perplexing as some of Justice Agnew's polished diction might be to some jurors, there can be no doubt that he spoke with the clarity of black paint on white signposts when he said:

'When it comes to a question whether one man shall flee or another shall live, the law decides that the former shall rather flee than that the latter shall die.'

This is language which no juror, no matter how uneducated, could misunderstand. The proposition presented in that instruction is the issue in this case. Should Collazo have fled and allowed Ruis to live, or was Collazo, under the law, entitled to stand his ground and kill Ruis even though his life was not endangered by the swinging of the stick by Ruis?

Defense counsel maintains that Collazo acted in self-defense and that there was no duty on his part to retreat from Ruis's attack. Whether Collazo was legally justified in stabbing Ruis under all the circumstances was a clear question of fact for the jury, and it was correctly presented by the Trial Judge. The weapon employed by Collazo in replying to Ruis's wooden assault was a large butcher knife, 12 1/2 inches in overall length with a blade 8 inches long and 1 inch wide. As already stated, he had this knife on his person the night of homicide.

The knife originally belonged to one Mayfield, a fellow-worker at the orchard. About a week prior to the killing, Collazo according to his story, took the knife away from Mayfield because Mayfield was drunk and...