Commonwealth v. Davis
| Decision Date | 30 November 1972 |
| Citation | 449 Pa. 468,297 A.2d 817 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Robert DAVIS, Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied Dec. 29, 1972.
I. Raymond Kremer, Philadelphia, for appellant.
Arlen Specter, Dist. Atty., Richard A. Sprague, 1st Asst. Dist Atty., James D. Crawford, Deputy Dist. Atty., Milton M Stein, Chief, Appeals Div., Philadelphia, for appellee.
Before JONES, C.J., and EAGEN, O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY and MANDERINO, JJ.
Judgment of sentence affirmed by an evenly divided Court.
O'BRIEN, J., filed an opinion in support of affirmance in which JONES, C.J., and EAGEN, J., joined.
ROBERTS, J., filed an opinion in opposition to affirmance in which POMEROY and MANDERINO, JJ., joined.
POMEROY, J., filed an opinion in opposition to affirmance in which ROBERTS and MANDERINO, JJ., joined.
NIX, J., did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.
It is uncontroverted that in any murder prosecution in this Commonwealth the jury may return a verdict of voluntary manslaughter which must be accepted by the trial court. Notwithstanding this well-settled principle, an equally divided court today affirms a trial court's instruction that the jury Cannot return such a verdict. Neither logic nor law supports such an anomolous result.
As long ago as 1925 and as recently as 1971 this Court reaffirmed the long-standing principle that a jury in a murder prosecution may Always return the verdict of voluntary manslaughter:
Commonwealth v. Arcuroso, 283 Pa. 84, 87, 128 A. 668, 670 (1925) (citation omitted) (emphasis supplied); Commonwealth v. Hill, 444 Pa. 323, 281 A.2d 859 (1971); Commonwealth v. Hoffman, 439 Pa. 348, 266 A.2d 726 (1970); Commonwealth v. Harry, 437 Pa. 532, 264 A.2d 402 (1970); Commonwealth v. Dennis, 433 Pa. 525, 252 A.2d 671 (1969); Commonwealth v. Cooney, 431 Pa. 153, 244 A.2d 651 (1968); Commonwealth v. Pavillard, 421 Pa. 571, 220 A.2d 807 (1966); Commonwealth v. Frazier, 420 Pa. 209, 216 A.2d 337 (1966); Commonwealth v. Frazier, 411 Pa. 195, 191 A.2d 369 (1963); Commonwealth v. Moore, 398 Pa. 198, 157 A.2d 65 (1959); Commonwealth v. Nelson, 396 Pa. 359, 152 A.2d 913 (1959); Commonwealth v. Steele, 362 Pa. 427, 66 A.2d 825 (1949); Commonwealth v. Kellyon, 278 Pa. 59, 122 A. 166 (1923); Commonwealth v. Gable, 7 Serg. & R. 423 (1821).
At the very least this traditionally accepted and established rule of law articulated in Arcuroso compels the conclusion that the trial court may not instruct the jury that it is not within the jury's province to return a verdict of manslaughter--when in fact the jury does have such authority. Should the jury return a verdict of voluntary manslaughter that verdict Must be accepted by the court. I must therefore conclude that the trial court's direction to the jury that it cannot return a verdict of voluntary manslaughter was an erroneous instruction. [*]
POMEROY and MANDERINO, JJ., join in this opposition to affirmance.
Today's decision affirming the result below perpetuates the anomoly which was the basis for the dissenting opinions in Commonwealth v. Matthews, 446 Pa. 65, 285 A.2d 510 (1971), namely, that In some but not all murder cases, the judge may see fit to inform the jury of its power to return a verdict of voluntary manslaughter even though under the evidence there is no justification for such a verdict (i.e., the accused was not shown to have been acting under the influence of sudden passion caused by legally adequate provocation that placed him beyond the control of reason.) See also Com. v. Pavillard, 421 Pa. 571, 220 A.2d 807 (1966) (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Cohen). As pointed out in the writer's Matthews dissent, because the choice whether or not to charge is discretionary with the trial judge, and he has been furnished with no objective standards for his guidance, the challenged practice offends due process; because the practice denies the same treatment to similarly situated defendants who happen to stand before differently disposed judges, it violates the equal protection of the laws.
The opinion in support of affirmance stands for the proposition that in a felony-murder case, 'it is perfectly proper for a trial judge to eliminate completely the jury's consideration of the possibility of a voluntary manslaughter verdict', and that, accordingly, the judge in this case did not err in charging the jury that 'as a matter of law . . . manslaughter could not be considered.' The opinion does not state that juries Must be so instructed in all felony-murder cases, nor that it would be error for the charge to be silent on the question of manslaughter, nor that it would be error for a judge to charge that the jury could, although under the evidence it should not, return a verdict of voluntary manslaughter. Thus the trial courts are still left with uninstructed discretion as to when they will or will not advert in their charges to the manslaughter possibility, and in what terms.
If in fact the purport of today's decision is to bar the trial judge in all felony murder cases from charging on voluntary manslaughter, the due process objection would be obviated with respect to this category (i.e. felony-murder) of murder cases by supplying a clear-cut mandate; the decision would not, however, eliminate the unconstitutional discrimination between different defendants charged with murder of the felony-murder type on the one hand and common law murder on the other.
The particular justification which my colleagues employ in support of today's decision is that in a felony-murder, wherein malice is supplied by statute with respect to killings which result from the commission of certain felonies, 'any evidence of passion or provocation would be irrelevant.' Moreover, it is argued that the crime in the case at bar was a particularly offensive one, and for a jury to find that the man who committed it was guilty only of voluntary manslaughter 'would make our system of criminal justice appear especially arbitrary and unjust.' This may be so, but does not meet the point.
As stated in my Matthews dissent, 'as long as we allow juries the latitude we do in homicide cases . . . criminal defendants must be treated equally by informing all juries of the verdicts they have the Power to return.' (Emphasis supplied.) If their power to return an illogical verdict did not reach to felony-murder cases, the rationale of my colleagues who favor affirmance might stand up, but this is not the case. Voluntary manslaughter is as much a lesser included offense of a felony-murder type of first degree murder as it is of the common law variety of intentional and premeditated first degree murder. Thus had the jury in the present case returned a verdict of voluntary manslaughter, the verdict would have been accepted, notwithstanding the explicit instruction of the court. Moreover, the illogical verdict which reflects jury sympathy or extenuating circumstances is not necessarily to be condemned merely because death occurs in the commission of a felony. Is the accused in a murder where death results from a heart attack during a purse snatching any less deserving of jury sympathy than the hireling who kills in cold blood?
I would reverse and remand for a new trial.
OPINION IN SUPPORT OF AFFIRMANCE
Sometime in the morning of July 21, 1967, Mrs. Hattie Stirling discovered the dead body of her daughter, nine-year-old Vintress Stirling, in the apartment which Mrs. Stirling and Vintress shared with Mrs. Stirling's three younger children. The police, summoned by an aunt of the deceased, arrived on the premises at 8:30 a.m., where they found the victim's body, lying face up on the bed with bruises around her neck and face and with foam around her mouth.
On the basis of circumstantial evidence, the jury found appellant, Robert Davis, guilty of first-degree murder. Appellant admitted that he had spent the entire night in the Stirling's apartment, allegedly waiting for Mrs. Stirling, who had gone out with a boyfriend, and that he had been admitted to the apartment by the victim. Mrs. Stirling testified that when she returned home at 1:30 a.m., the appellant threatened to kill her. She claimed that she attempted to check on the welfare of her children, but appellant held up a sheet partially obscuring the decedent so that Mrs. Stirling did not suspect anything until, still in the company of appellant, she discovered the decedent's body the following morning.
The decedent's sister, Sandra, who shared a bed with the decedent and a younger sister, testified that she had awakened at sometime the previous evening to hear the appellant ask her where her sister usually slept, after which the appellant pushed the decedent up toward the head of the bed. Sandra had no idea whether her sister was alive or dead at the time.
At the trial of appellant, the Commonwealth sought to show that the victim had been killed before 1:30 a.m., but that this...
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Com. v. Davis
...297 A.2d 817 ... 449 Pa. 468 ... COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, ... Robert DAVIS, Appellant ... Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ... Nov. 30, 1972 ... Rehearing Denied Dec. 29, 1972 ... [449 Pa. 471] I. Raymond Kremer, Philadelphia, for appellant ... Arlen Specter, Dist. Atty., Richard A. Sprague, 1st ... ...