Commonwealth v. Karamarkovic

• Decision Date: 20 May 1907
• Docket Number: 80
• Citation: 218 Pa. 405,67 A. 650
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Karamarkovic, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

67 A. 650

218 Pa. 405

Commonwealth v. Karamarkovic, Appellant

No. 80

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

May 20, 1907

Argued May 6, 1907

Appeal, No. 80, Oct. T., 1907, by defendant, from judgment of O. & T. Cambria Co., Dec. T., 1905, No. 7, on verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree in case of Commonwealth v. Marko Karamarkovic. Affirmed.

Indictment for murder. Before O'CONNOR, P.J.

The opinion of the Supreme Court states the case.

Verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree upon which sentence was passed.

Errors assigned were various rulings and instructions sufficiently set forth in the opinion of the Supreme Court.

The judgment is affirmed and the record remitted for purpose of execution.

Walter Jones and M. B. Stephens, for appellant.

J. W Leech and D. P. Weimer, for the appellee.

Before MITCHELL, C.J., FELL, BROWN, MESTREZAT, POTTER, ELKIN and STEWART, JJ.

OPINION

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MITCHELL:

Counsel seem to be slow in learning that the multiplication of assignments of error upon trivial points, having no substantial bearing on the merits of the issue, are always injurious to an appellant's case by their inevitable suggestion that the record has been hunted over less to discover real error or injustice than to pick a flaw on which to hang an objection. Assignments of error in criminal cases are particularly open to this inference.

In this case the fact that the deceased was killed by stab wounds under circumstances that made it murder was undisputed, and the defense was an alibi. The only issue, therefore, was whether the prisoner was the man who did the killing, and, if so, the degree of the crime. The case was submitted to the jury in a full and careful charge covering all the matters open to doubt. Of the seventeen assignments of error, mostly hypercritical objections to the charge, only a few need be specially referred to.

The deceased and a friend were nearing their home shortly after dark on a November evening, when a man rushed across the street or out of an alley, stabbed them both and then ran up the alley. There was no preliminary quarrel, and no motive appeared except the suggestion of racial antipathy, all the parties being foreigners. The deceased, Homa, helped his friend into the house and then returned for their hats which had been lost in the attack. He picked up his friend's hat and another which on bringing into the house, he found was not his. Between the attack and Homa's return to search for the hats, a man was seen striking matches in the alley, picking up a hat and running away. There was testimony tending to identify this man as the prisoner, and when the latter was arrested in the neighborhood an hour or so later, he was wearing a hat testified to be that of Homa, the murdered man. This was the most important single item in the chain of evidence, and has been fully recited to show the bearing of the testimony which is the subject of the first assignment of error. When the physician, who attended Homa at the hospital, was on the stand, he was asked if the cuts on Homa's head and neck would be about the location of the cuts in the hat worn by the prisoner when arrested. He answered, very carefully and guardedly, "A. Well, it would depend altogether on how the hat was worn at the time. I, in examining the hat, could readily see how, if the hat was down over the side of the head, somewhat in this manner (illustrates same) and the knife jammed in through this cut, that it could make the cut behind the left ear as he had it. But the hat would have to be down over the back of his head somewhat like that (again illustrates same) to do it. Evidently a cut or stab done in that way would make the cut, provided the hat was in the position I speak of, in my judgment." This was objected to and is now argued against as a mere opinion and a conclusion from it which was not for the witness but for the jury to draw. Even as an opinion, however, it was clearly admissible, for the witness had...