Commonwealth v. Morgenthau

• Decision Date: 19 April 1915
• Docket Number: 398
• Citation: 94 A. 551,249 Pa. 139
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Morgenthau, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

94 A. 551

249 Pa. 139

Commonwealth v. Morgenthau, Appellant

No. 398

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

April 19, 1915

Argued February 22, 1915

Appeal, No. 398, Jan. T., 1915, by defendant, from conviction and sentence of O. & T., Cumberland Co., Sept. Sess., 1914 No. 27, in case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Max Morgenthau. Reversed.

Indictment for murder. Before SADLER, P.J.

The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.

The defendant pleaded guilty. The court after hearing evidence determined the crime to be murder of the first degree and sentenced defendant to death. Defendant appealed.

Error assigned, among others, was the judgment of the court.

And now, April 19, 1915, the judgment of the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Cumberland County in the premises is reversed and this court, having proceeded to determine upon the same evidence that was submitted to the court below the degree of the crime whereof the said Max Morgenthau is convicted by his own confession, now finds and declares that the crime of the said Max Morgenthau is murder of the second degree, and gives judgment accordingly; and forasmuch as the said Max Morgenthau is confined in the public jail of Cumberland County, distant herefrom, it is further ordered that the record, with this finding and judgment, be remitted to the said Court of Oyer and Terminer of Cumberland County, with a direction to the president judge thereof to proceed to pronounce sentence upon the said Max Morgenthau, as for murder of the second degree, according to law, and for such term of imprisonment at labor as he, the said judge, shall adjudge to be a fit and proper punishment for his said offense.

Wm. A. Zerby and Edwin E. Barnitz, for appellant.

Jasper Alexander, District Attorney, and William A. Kramer, for appellee.

Before BROWN, C.J., POTTER, STEWART, MOSCHZISKER and FRAZER, JJ.

OPINION

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BROWN:

Max Morgenthau, the appellant, was indicted in the court below for the murder of John M. Rupp. He entered a plea of guilty to the indictment, and thereupon the court, in accordance with the provisions of Sec. 74 of the Act of March 31, 1860, P.L. 382, proceeded by examination of witnesses, to determine the degree of the crime. Its finding was that the prisoner was guilty of murder of the first degree, and, from the judgment which followed, there has come his appeal to this court, which imposes upon us the duty of determining whether the ingredients of murder of the first degree were proved to exist: Act of Feb. 15, 1870, P.L. 15. If the testimony taken to determine the degree of the appellant's guilt would have justified a finding by a jury that his crime was that of murder of the first degree, the finding of the court below would be justified, and the judgment on it would have to be sustained. Was the court's finding justified? This is the sole question for our determination.

If from the evidence brought up to us it appears that the prisoner did not think, reflect and weigh the nature of his act when he shot the deceased, the judgment from which he has appealed cannot be affirmed, and "a reasonable doubt which intervenes to prevent a fair and honest mind from being satisfied that a deliberate and premeditated purpose to take life existed, should throw its weight into the scale and forbid the sentence of death": Jones v. Commonwealth, 75 Pa. 403. "It is death": Jones v. Commonwealth, 75 Pa. 403. "It is true that such is the swiftness of human thought, that no time is so short in which a wicked man may not form a design to kill, and frame the means of executing his purpose; yet this suddenness is opposed to premeditation, and a jury must be well convinced upon the evidence that there was time to deliberate and premeditate. The law regards, and the jury must find the actual intent; that is to say, the fully formed purpose to kill, with so much time for deliberation and premeditation, as to convince them that this purpose is not the immediate offspring of rashness and impetuous temper, and that the mind has become fully conscious of its own design": Commonwealth v. Drum, 58 Pa. 9. This is the test by which the just fate of the prisoner is to be determined, however atrocious his offense may seem to be.

At the time of the commission of his crime the prisoner lived at Harrisburg, and professed to be a huckster. He owned a horse and wagon and was in the habit of driving through the surrounding country for the purpose, as he says, of buying poultry and produce. On the afternoon of May 20, 1914, he left Harrisburg, with his team, and crossed over the Susquehanna river into Cumberland County. He left Harrisburg between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, and some time later was seen driving through Mechanicsburg. After he left that town he was seen, about 6:30, near the Rupp farm and going towards it. About seven o'clock two witnesses saw him pass their homes. Another saw him about eight o'clock, going towards the Rupp place. These witnesses were neighbors and lived near the Rupps. After...