Commonwealth v. Reid

• Citation: 247 A.2d 783,432 Pa. 319
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. David REID, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 12 November 1968
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

247 A.2d 783

432 Pa. 319

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. David REID, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

November 12, 1968.

Thomas A. Young, Ebensburg, for appellant.

Ferdinand F. Bionaz, Dist. Atty., William G. Shahade, Asst. Dist Atty., Ebensburg, for appellee.

Before BELL, C.J., and MUSMANNO, JONES, COHEN, EAGEN O'BRIEN and ROBERTS, JJ., concurring.

OPINION

EAGEN Justice.

On December 16, 1965, David Reid was convicted by a jury in Cambria County of voluntary manslaughter. A motion for a new trial was timely filed, but was later withdrawn. On December 27 1965, a sentence of imprisonment of from six to twelve years was imposed. No appeal from the judgment was then entered.

In 1967 Reid filed a petition for post conviction relief; from those proceedings there resulted an agreement between Reid's counsel and the district attorney that Reid would be permitted to file motions in arrest of judgment and for a new trial with the same effect as if those motions had been timely filed. This agreement was approved by the court and an order was entered pursuant to it. Such motions were then filed and, after argument, the court en banc concluded that they were without merit and dismissed them. Reid now appeals to this Court.

First, Reid complains that the verdict was not supported by the evidence. An examination of the record clearly demonstrates that he is wrong.

An appellant in Reid's position, challenging an adverse verdict as being unsupported by the evidence, is bound by the fundamental test that, in resolving the question, the court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth. And, in deciding as to the sufficiency of the evidence, we accept as true all of the evidence, whether direct or circumstantial, upon which the jury could have based its verdict; and having done that, we evaluate it to determine if it is legally sufficient to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant is guilty of the crime of which he was convicted. Commonwealth v. Finnie, 415 Pa. 166, 202 A.2d 85 (1964).

The uncontradicted facts established by the Commonwealth and correctly related in the opinion of the lower court are as follows:

'On June 18th, 1965, police officers in the City of Johnstown, answering a call, found in an apartment bedroom at 312 Gray Avenue two bodies lying on the floor. One was defendant and the other the deceased, Mrs. Sidney Jones. Defendant's trousers and underwear were open and his privates exposed. Mrs. Jones' dress was up to the hip line and her privates exposed. Defendant was alive but Mrs. Jones was dead. All windows in the apartment were locked and the front door was opened with a key which was obtained by the police officers who found defendant lying on the body of the victim. In the same room, the police also found a sock and an apron string.

'Mrs. Jones died of asphxia from strangulation or suffocation. On the right side of her neck she had a linear groove mark of recent origin and a small laceration at the entrance to the vagina, together with many other bruises and minor hemorrhages. The room was in disorder.'

Certainly from these facts the jury could properly have concluded that Reid killed the victim. Indeed, the proof would have sustained a conviction for a greater offense than voluntary manslaughter.

At his trial, Reid testified that because of his prior consumption of a great quantity of whiskey, he was unable either to recall or to relate the happenings in the victim's apartment.

Generally speaking, voluntary drunkenness neither exonerates nor excuses a person for his criminal acts. Commonwealth v Simmons, 361 Pa. 391, 65 A.2d 353 (1949), cert. denied, 338 U.S. 862, 70 S.Ct. 96, 94 L.Ed. 528 (1949). However, where the charge is felonious homicide, intoxication which is so great as to make the accused incapable of forming a wilful, deliberate, and premeditated design to kill, or incapable of judging his acts and their consequences, may serve to reduce the crime of murder from the first to the second degree. Commonwealth v. Simmons, supra. See also Commonwealth v. Walters, 431 Pa. 74, 244 A.2d 757 (1968). ...