Commonwealth v. Garramone
| Decision Date | 26 May 1932 |
| Docket Number | 145 |
| Citation | 161 A. 733,307 Pa. 507 |
| Parties | Commonwealth v. Garramone, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued April 11, 1932
Appeal, No. 145, Jan. T., 1932, by defendant, from judgment of O. & T. Phila. Co., May T., 1930, No. 620, on verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree with punishment fixed at death, in case of Commonwealth v. Antonio Garramone. Reversed.
Indictment for murder. Trial without a jury by McDEVITT, P.J.
The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.
Verdict by trial judge of murder of the first degree with punishment fixed as death. Defendant appealed.
Errors assigned were the verdict and judgment, quoting them.
The sentence of death is vacated and the record is remitted with instructions to sentence the defendant to imprisonment for life according to law.
Henry M. Stevenson, with him John Alessandroni, for appellant. -- The evidence showed that at the time the shot was fired the defendant was in a mental state of great excitement, anger and indignation as the result of having been told that the deceased, a man much the physical superior had beaten the defendant's son Frank that day.
Whether there was the legal time necessary for cooling and for the forming of a deliberate and premeditated purpose to kill is not proven, but that there was no such cooling has been proven by the Commonwealth's case.
This case is the first, so far as counsel is aware, that has come to the Supreme Court, in which a general plea of guilty was entered by a defendant upon an indictment charging murder before a judge, without a jury, and in which the sitting judge found the defendant guilty of first degree murder and fixed the penalty as death.
This was not a case involving robbery, or the commission of any other felony, nor was it a case where the act was one striking at the structure of society. It was a case of passion born of the indignation of a parent at injury to his child.
The act of defendant was due to the love of his children, and his own desire to protect them and was the direct and connected act of a sequence immediately following the story told him by his wife but a short time before.
This case was heard, and without argument of counsel on either side, the learned trial judge immediately upon the conclusion of the hearing of the testimony entered the judgment of guilty of murder in the first degree and immediately sentenced the defendant to death.
Vincent A. Carroll, Assistant District Attorney, with him John A Skelton, Jr., and Charles F. Kelley, District Attorney, for appellee. -- Where all the elements of first degree murder are shown, the appellate court will not weigh the evidence nor pass upon the credibility of witnesses: Com. v Daynarowicz, 275 Pa. 235; Com. v. Bishop, 285 Pa. 49; Com. v. Watkins, 298 Pa. 165; Com. v. Paul, 289 Pa. 452; Com. v. Staush, 256 Pa. 620.
The rule concerning the length of time necessary for a man to achieve the premeditation required in first degree murder is well stated in its completeness by KEPHART, J., in Com. v. Daynarowicz, 275 Pa. 235.
Between ten and twenty seconds was sufficient time in Com. v. Buccieri, 153 Pa. 535; Com. v. Staush, 256 Pa. 620.
Twenty minutes was held sufficient in Com. v. Paul, 289 Pa. 452; Com. v. Anthony, 259 Pa. 65; Com. v. Gibson, 277 Pa. 546.
The learned trial judge did not err in fixing the penalty and punishment as death: Com. v. Ritter, 13 Pa. D. & C. 285.
In the case at bar, the trial judge was the one best qualified to determine proper punishment under the Act of 1925. Under the circumstances, the exercise of his discretion should not be disturbed.
Before FRAZER, C.J., SIMPSON, KEPHART, SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW and LINN, JJ.
After appellant pleaded guilty to an indictment for murder, the court heard evidence produced on behalf of the Commonwealth and also on behalf of defendant, and adjudged him guilty of murder of the first degree and imposed sentence of death. Defendant appeals. See article V, section 24, of the Constitution; the Acts of April 15, 1870, P.L. 15, and May 19, 1874, P.L. 219; Com. v. Paul, 289 Pa. 452, 137 A. 606.
The Act of May 14, 1925, P.L. 759, section 75 of the Crimes Act of 1860, P.L. 382, provides: The Act of March 14, 1877, P.L. 77, entitled "To repeal so much of the fourth section of the Act of February third, one thousand eight hundred and forty-three, entitled 'An act to abolish the court of general sessions of the City and County of Philadelphia, and for other purposes,' and of any other act or law which requires two judges, learned in the law, to be a quorum of the court of oyer and terminer for the trial of homicide cases" provides "That from and after the passage of this act, one law judge shall be competent and sufficient to hold a court of oyer and terminer of the trial of homicide as well as other cases, and all laws or parts of laws inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed."
Appellant states three questions for review. 1. Did the court err in adjudging defendant guilty of murder in the first degree? 2. Did the court err in imposing sentence of death? 3. Was there error "in receiving in rebuttal of good-reputation evidence, testimony of [a] specific" act? In view of the conclusion reached on the second question, we need not discuss the third, merely noting that no objection was made to the evidence, counsel for defendant apparently being of opinion that objectionable evidence (Com. v. Colandro, 231 Pa. 343, 355, 80 A. 571) would not be considered by the judge.
1. For the purpose of passing on the first question, we have carefully read the evidence as required by the Act of 1870, supra. In considering it, we have accepted as true all the testimony from which the learned trial judge may have found that the murder was wilful, deliberate and premeditated within the legal meaning of those words: Com. v. Diaco, 268 Pa. 305, 111 A. 879; Com. v. Paul, supra; Com. v. Watkins, 298 Pa. 165, 167, 148 A. 65.
Miller, who was killed, was about twenty-five years old and lived at 1844 Hoffman Street. Defendant, aged forty-nine, lived on the opposite side of the street at number 1841. Between one and two o'clock, April 12 1930, defendant's ten-year-old daughter and the four-year-old son of the decedent Miller had some childish altercation in the street. Miller was playing cards on a door step near by, when his attention was drawn by his small son to their quarrel. He gave the child a stick and told him to strike the girl. Then, defendant's son -- aged eighteen, -- approached Miller (described as a "pretty large" man) and remonstrated, whereupon Miller struck him in the face and knocked him down on the payment twice, the second time leaving him unconscious. The young man was assisted into his house, not however until his mother, wife of defendant, attacked or attempted to attack Miller. In the afternoon Miller went to a ball game. During the day, defendant had been working on his farm some distance away. He came home between four and five o'clock; he, himself, fixed the time at 4:45. He found his wife much agitated, and on inquiring the reason, was informed by her of the circumstances in which Miller had assaulted their son. Several witnesses testified that after he came home they heard him threaten to shoot Miller. Shortly after 5:30, Miller returned from the ball game. As he stood on the front step of his house, intending to enter, defendant came out of his house with a shotgun and shot Miller. The records of the police station show that the shooting was reported there by telephone at 5:45. The evidence is not clear whether the shell discharged by the gun was loaded with buck shot or smaller shot.
It appears, then, that in something more than half an hour after defendant returned home and learned of the occurrences of the day, he shot Miller, who died shortly after being taken to a hospital. As to the inferences that may be made from the threats and from the use of the gun, see Com. v. Moon, 264 Pa. 63, 107 A. 389; and Com. v. Green, 294 Pa. 573, 584, 144 A. 743. The record, therefore, reveals all the "ingredients necessary to constitute murder in the first degree."
Appellant contends that there was not sufficient time between learning of the incidents involving his children and the time of the actual shooting, to supply the qualities of wilful deliberate and premeditated killing; that interval is not to be considered abstractly, but as one of the circumstances of the transaction; less than a minute, in connection with other circumstances, was held sufficient in Com. v. Buccieri, 153 Pa. 535, 540, 26 A. 228; in Com. v. Paul, supra, the interval was about twenty minutes; on the same subject, see Com. v....
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Commonwealth v. Garramone
... 161 A. 733307 Pa. 507 COMMONWEALTH v. GARRAMONE. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. May 26, 1932. Appeal from Court of Oyer and Terminer, Philadelphia County; Harry S. McDevitt, President Judge. Antonio Garramone was convicted of murder of the first degree, and given a death sentence, and he a......