Commonwealth v. ford

• Decision Date: 13 November 1925
• Docket Number: 16-1926,15-1926,14-1926
• Citation: 86 Pa.Super. 483
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Ford et al., Appellants
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

86 Pa.Super. 483

Commonwealth v. Ford et al., Appellants

Nos. 14-1926, 15-1926, 16-1926

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

November 13, 1925

Argued October 6, 1925

Appeals by defendants from judgment and sentence of O. & T Columbia County-1924, No. 18, in the cases of Commonwealth v David Ford, Walter Hadisty and Harold Long.

Indictment for rape. Before Potter, P. J., 17th Judicial District Specially Presiding.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.

Verdict of guilty on which judgment of sentence was passed. Defendants appealed.

Errors assigned were various rulings on evidence, as quoted in the opinion of the Superior Court, refusal to withdraw a juror because of remarks of district attorney, refusal to grant a new trial and refusal to direct a verdict in favor of defendant, Harold Long.

Edward J. Flynn, for appellants.

R. S. Hemingway, and with him E. J. Mullen and H. R. Stees, District Attorney, for appellee.

Before Porter, Henderson, Trexler, Keller, Linn and Gawthrop, JJ.

OPINION

GAWTHROP, J.

These three defendants were all tried and convicted on a single bill of indictment which charged them with committing the crime of felonious rape upon Anna McHale. They have taken these several appeals. The evidence produced by the Commonwealth, if true, established that about five o'clock in the afternoon of September 17, 1924, Anna McHale, a young woman twenty-two years of age, started to walk from Woodland Heights to her home in Byrnesville, a distance of about two and a half miles. She went by way of a lonely path over the mountain and when she was about a mile from home she passed David Ford, one of the defendants, and William Hadisty, the father of another of the defendants, seated near the path. A few yards further on she passed Walter Hadisty and Harold Long, the other defendants, standing in the path. None of the men spoke to her, nor did she speak to them, nor know them. When she reached the ravine at the foot of the mountain about three-fourths of a mile from where she had passed these men, she heard footsteps behind her and when she turned around to see who it was, the defendant, Hadisty, seized her and attempted to throw her to the ground. While she was resisting she saw the defendant, Ford, approaching and called to him for help. Ford, instead of coming to her assistance, laughed at her and took hold of her and helped Hadisty throw her down. While Hadisty was ravishing her, Ford held her hands and covered her mouth. While Hadisty and Ford were thus engaged, Long, the other defendant, stood about five feet away from them; he did not touch the young woman and said nothing, but he offered her no assistance, although she was struggling and screaming for help. After she was released she ran about one hundred yards along the path toward her home, where she met two men, Gerrity and McIntosh, who had heard her screams when they were more than four hundred yards away. She informed them of the assault. Gerrity and McIntosh followed the defendants, learned who they were and questioned them.

The first assignment relates to the admission of the testimony of Gerrity, a witness for the Commonwealth, that when McIntosh asked the defendants what they did with the girl and they said " nothing," McIntosh said to them: " By the look of your faces you don't look it," and that the defendants made no reply. The statement attributed to McIntosh was accusatory in character and well calculated to elicit a reply. The silence of the defendants after that statement was a circumstance for the consideration of the jury. The conduct or demeanor of a prisoner on being charged with the crime, or allusion being made to it, is frequently given in evidence against him. (Ettinger v. Com., 98 Pa. 338, 346.) Under the circumstances, the testimony objected to was competent evidence.

Dr Marshall, a witness called by the Commonwealth, testified that he made a physical examination of Miss McHale the morning after the alleged assault; that she was in bed and in an exceedingly nervous condition; but that he found no marks of violence upon her person and that it was impossible for him to tell whether any carnal intercourse had been had with her the day before. The doctor was permitted to state, subject to objection, that at that time Miss McHale's mother informed him that she had given her daughter treatment by irrigation the evening before and that he deemed it proper treatment. The admission of that evidence is the basis of the second assignment. The evidence was...