Commonwealth v. Mamulo

• Citation: 313 Pa. 214,169 A. 109
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. MAMULO.
• Decision Date: 27 November 1933
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

169 A. 109
313 Pa. 214

COMMONWEALTH
v.
MAMULO.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Nov. 27, 1933.

Appeal No. 206, March term, 1933, from judgment and sentence of Court of Oyer & Terminer, Allegheny County, No. 8, March term, 1932; James A. Chambers, President Judge, Fifty-Third Judicial District, Specially Presiding Judge.

Mike Mamulo was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Argued before FRAZER, C. J., and SIMPSON, KEPHART, SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW, and LINN, JJ.

Jacob Shulgold and Francis L. McFarren, both of Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Andrew T. Park, Dist. Atty., and Earle R. Jackson, Asst. Dist. Atty., both of Pittsburgh, for the Commonwealth.

MAXEY, Justice.

At 12:25 p. in., December 6, 1930, Charles McFarland, cashier of the Allegheny Valley Trust Company of Verona, was shot and killed in that bank by a man perpetrating a robbery. One Matt Hadok was arrested fourteen months later and identified and convicted as the murderer. See Commonwealth v. Hadok, 313 Pa. 110, 169 A. Ill. The defendant Mike Mamulo was also named in the same indictment as the murderer of McFarland; the contention of the commonwealth being that Hadok and Mamulo were accomplices in the crime. Mamulo was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

The evidence against Mamulo was less convincing than the evidence against Hadok, and the question before us is whether there was sufficient evidence against Mamulo to submit to the jury. At the close of the commonwealth's case defendant's counsel unsuccessfully moved for a directed verdict.

Gladys Smith, an employee of the trust company, testified that she ran after the bandit who shot McFarland and followed him until she saw him jump on the running board of an Essex car which she described as "coming along real slow," and that she saw him a little later "sitting in with the man" (meaning evidently the driver). She then saw Filmore Simpson coming in a car, and she screamed to Simpson: "Get him, he robbed the bank." Simpson then turned and followed the Essex car. She could not identify the defendant Mamulo, as she saw only the back of the man who was driving.

Simpson, who on the day of the homicide was about seventeen and a half years of age, testified that he followed the Essex car at a distance of about eighty feet. The car contained two people. When the car reached Jones street, Verona, it turned to the right near where there was a garage, and then Simpson "saw the white shirtsleeves of a man going behind this...