Commonwealth v. Collins

• Decision Date: 09 October 1970
• Citation: 269 A.2d 882,440 Pa. 368
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Charles COLLINS, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

269 A.2d 882

440 Pa. 368

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Charles COLLINS, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

October 9, 1970.

Louis Lipschitz, James J. Boyle, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Arlen Specter, Dist. Atty., James D. Crawford, Asst. Dist. Atty Chief, Appeals Division, Michael M. Baylson, Asst. Dist Atty., Philadelphia, for appellee.

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

OPINION OF THE COURT

ROBERTS Justice.

In 1966 Charles Collins was brought to trial for the murder of his wife, Violet. The jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree and the penalty was fixed at life imprisonment. This is a direct appeal from that judgment of sentence.

The evidence adduced at the trial indicated that on June 4, 1965, Collins and his family went on a shopping trip and came home late in the afternoon. While Collins' wife and children went down the street to visit a neighbor, Collins went inside his own house for a short time and then asked a neighbor to walk down the street and call his wife home. When Mrs. Collins arrived at the house Collins beat her to death with a hammer, an event witnessed by a young girl who lived nearby. Upon discovering that he had been observed, Collins enjoined the girl never to tell anyone what she had seen and then left. As Collins drove away from his home two people heard him say 'I just killed Violet.' A short time later the Collins children discovered their mother's lifeless body.

Collins now argues that his conviction must be reversed for six reasons, none of which persuade us that he should prevail and which we will discuss severally.

Collins' first argument is that the trial court abused its discretion in permitting the Commonwealth to show the jury a colored slide depicting the decedent's head injuries, because the slide's evidentiary value was far outweighed by the potential prejudice to Collins. Although Collins has correctly set forth the applicable test, see Commonwealth v. Robinson, 433 Pa. 88, 249 A.2d 536 (1969); Commonwealth v. Wilson, 431 Pa. 21, 244 A.2d 734 (1968); Commonwealth v. Powell, 428 Pa. 275, 241 A.2d 119 (1968), we cannot find that the trial court abused its discretion in permitting the slide to be shown. The slide was as non-inflammatory as possible because all excess blood had been removed from the decedent's face before the photograph was taken, so this is not a case where some less inflammatory version of the slide could have been utilized. Cf. Commonwealth v. Eckhart, 430 Pa. 311, 242 A.2d 271 (1968). Additionally, the trial court found as a fact that the slide was necessary to the jury's understanding of the medical examiner's testimony, a finding we cannot dispute. Hence we find that the slide was neither so inflammatory nor so unnecessary as to be inadmissible.

Collins' second contention is that the trial court erred both in permitting a police officer to testify that Collins fled when the officer attempted to arrest him and in charging the jury that evidence of flight might indicate consciousness of guilt. There was no error in either allowing the testimony or giving the charge. As we said in Commonwealth v. Coyle, 415 Pa. 379, 393, 203 A.2d 782, 789 (1964): 'When a person commits a crime, knows that he is wanted therefor, and flees or conceals himself, such conduct is evidence of consciousness of guilt, and may form the basis in connection with other proof from which guilt may be inferred.' (citations omitted). The police officer's testimony and the jury instructions on flight were within the boundaries of the law as stated in Coyle, and both were therefore proper. Collins' assertion that this rule of law is subject to the same constitutional infirmities as are tacit admissions, disapproved in Commonwealth v. Dravecz, 424 Pa. 582, 227 A.2d 904 (1967), is erroneous. Tacit admissions were barred because they violated an accused's Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in the face of police interrogation, a problem which has no analogy to the situation presented here. Flight, unlike silence in the face of police questioning, cannot be taken as an assertion of a constitutional right.

Collins' third argument is that the trial court improperly instructed the assistant district attorney to coach a witness's answers to certain questions. The problem arose when the defense called as its first witness the detective who had been in charge of the investigation and attempted to establish that his investigation had been cursory, the inference being that a more careful examination would have disclosed the defendant's innocence. The Commonwealth objected to this line of questioning because it felt that the real reason for the shortness of the original investigation was that the day after the murder Collins had given the police a confession, which had been subsequently suppressed. At a side bar conference the assistant district attorney expressed his intention to bring out on cross-examination the fact that the detective had cut short his investigation for this reason. The trial judge told the assistant district attorney that any mention of a confession would cause a mistrial and instructed him to tell the detective not to mention the confession. We specifically approve of the trial court's handling of this problem; it was hardly inappropriate for the trial judge to avoid the delay and expense of a mistrial in this fashion.

Collins' fourth assertion is that the trial court erred in refusing to allow defense counsel assess to a 'memorandum'...