Commonwealth v. Greene
| Decision Date | 14 February 1910 |
| Docket Number | 261 |
| Citation | 75 A. 1024,227 Pa. 86 |
| Parties | Commonwealth v. Greene, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued October 4, 1909
Appeal, No. 261, Jan. T., 1909, by defendant, from judgment of O. & T. Phila. Co., March T., 1908, No. 68, on verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree in case of Commonwealth v. George A. Greene. Reversed.
Indictment for murder. Before KINSEY, J.
The opinion of the Supreme Court states the case.
Verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree, upon which judgment of sentence was passed.
Error assigned among others, was (27) the portion of the charge quoted in the opinion of the Supreme Court.
The twenty-seventh assignment of error is sustained and the judgment is reversed with a venire facias de novo.
Edwin M. Abbott, with him Samuel W. Salus, for appellant, cited Com. v. Mika, 171 Pa. 273; Murray v. Com., 79 Pa. 311; Com. v. Drum, 58 Pa. 9; Com. v Deitrick, 218 Pa. 36; Com. v. Onofri, 18 Phila. 436.
Joseph P. Rogers, assistant district attorney, with him Samuel P. Rotan, district attorney, for appellee, cited: Com. v. Green, 1 Ashmead, 289; Com. v. Drum, 58 Pa. 9; Com. v. Dietrick, 218 Pa. 36; Com. v. Sutton, 205 Pa. 605; Com. v. Kovovic, 209 Pa. 465; Penna. R.R. Co. v. Coon, 111 Pa. 430.
Before MITCHELL, C.J., FELL, BROWN, MESTREZAT, POTTER, ELKIN and STEWART, JJ.
The appellant, George A. Greene, was charged in the court below with the murder of Edith Wonderly. From the case as presented by the commonwealth it appeared that about midnight on December 24, 1907, a man and woman were heard quarreling on the sidewalk at the corner of Carlisle and Brown streets, in the city of Philadelphia; that pistol shots were heard; that a man was seen pointing a revolver and shooting at an object under the awning at a store on the corner of the streets named; that he then walked up the street a short distance and, pointing the revolver at his own head, shot himself. The woman found upon the pavement under the awning was Edith Wonderly, who had been shot twice in the head. She and the prisoner were conveyed to a hospital, where she died from her injuries on February 18, 1908. He recovered and, upon an indictment found against him, was convicted of murder of the first degree.
No evidence was offered on behalf of the prisoner, and the only questions for the jury's determination were whether the commonwealth had shown that he had shot the deceased, and, if so, whether his offense was willful, deliberate and premeditated murder. There could have been no doubt in the minds of the jury that he had slain the woman, and that his crime was a premeditated one appeared from a statement made by him, from his purchase of a revolver and cartridges shortly before the shooting and from letters written by him to the mother of the deceased and to other persons before the crime was committed. Though the verdict was fully warranted by the evidence, it cannot be sustained here if the trial judge committed substantial error in his instructions to the jury as to the law which was to be their guide. When a man's life is at stake it is not to be adjudged forfeited by the law except under strict observance by court and jury of the right of the accused, however revolting his offense may appear to be, to be tried in accordance with long-settled and well-known principles. It is difficult to understand the failure of a trial court to follow these in a capital case. Such failure is almost certain to result in the delay of justice, often and not unnaturally misunderstood as a denial of it to the commonwealth, when a retrial must be ordered, that the accused may be tried according to the law of the land.
Twenty-seven assignments of error are before us. All have been given the careful consideration required by the gravity of the case. The first twenty-six are dismissed with the simple comment that by no one of them has error been pointed out, and but for the twenty-seventh the judgment would be affirmed. The subject of that assignment is the following portion of the charge: "The law holds that if a man uses a deadly weapon upon the vital part of another person, it is a presumption that he intended the consequences that would follow from, as, for illustration, from his...
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