Commonwealth v. Grether

• Decision Date: 10 November 1902
• Docket Number: 233
• Citation: 204 Pa. 203,53 A. 753
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Grether, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

53 A. 753

204 Pa. 203

Commonwealth v. Grether, Appellant

No. 233

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

November 10, 1902

Argued October 13, 1902

Appeal, No. 233, Jan. T., 1902, by defendant, from judgment of O. & T. Monroe Co., Dec. T., 1901, No. 1, on verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, in case of Commonwealth v. Charles Grether. Affirmed.

Indictment for murder. Before HEYDT, P.J., specially presiding.

At the trial it appeared that the prisoner on September 24, 1901 shot and killed Adam Strunk, a private citizen, who was attempting to arrest the prisoner without a warrant for a felony.

The court admitted under objection and exception, testimony relating to the exhumation and examination of the body of the deceased, which had been taken up by the district attorney. [3-5]

Verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, upon which judgment of sentence was passed. Plaintiff appealed.

Errors assigned among others were (3-5) rulings on evidence quoting the bill of exceptions; (17) refusal of prisoner's fifth point quoted in the opinion of the Supreme Court; (18) that the record is insufficient to sustain a conviction of murder in the first degree.

F. B Holmes, with him W. A. Shafer and Samuel E. Shull, for appellant.

Cicero Gearhart, district attorney, with him Claude C. Shull and Rogers L. Burnett, for appellee.

Before McCOLLUM, C.J., MITCHELL, DEAN, FELL, BROWN, MESTREZAT and POTTER, JJ.

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

The day before the homicide, a felony had been committed in the vicinity. The evidence clearly indicates that the prisoner was one of the culprits, who, though pursued by the officers of the law, had eluded arrest. Strunk, the deceased, having learned where they were, accompanied by several of his neighbors, started as a private citizen without a warrant to arrest them. Coming upon them early in the morning as they were cooking their breakfast, he approached them and laying his hand upon the shoulder of each said, "I arrest you." Having been asked by the prisoner why they were arrested, the reply was "For breaking into a house at Minsi." The prisoner said, "We will go with you." His companion, under pretense of getting ready to accompany Strunk, darted into the surrounding bushes and escaped. The prisoner almost simultaneously shot and killed the deceased. At the time of the shooting, he was under arrest by his victim, who as a private citizen without a warrant had a right, under the circumstances, to arrest him 4 Bl. Com. 293. A felony had been committed; the prisoner and his companion were the perpetrators of it; they had eluded the officers of the law, and the pursuit by the private citizen was fresh, who, when he made the arrest, notified his prisoner that it was for a felony that had been committed by him. The right of a private citizen to make an arrest under such circumstances cannot be doubted. The law clothes him with ample authority and affords him the same protection it will extend to a public officer with a warrant in his hands: Brooks v. Com., 61 Pa. 352. In that case it is said: "It is also said that arrest by a private person is contrary to the genius of our institutions, and is the relic of a barbarous age. But the reverse is the case in a republic, where the people...