Commonwealth v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 23 March 1936
• Docket Number: 413
• Citation: 184 A. 97,321 Pa. 327
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Thompson, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

184 A. 97

321 Pa. 327

Commonwealth v. Thompson, Appellant

No. 413

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

March 23, 1936

Argued January 6, 1936

Appeal, No. 413, Jan. T., 1935, by defendant, from judgment and sentence of O. & T. Delaware Co., March Sessions, 1935 No. 341, in case of Commonwealth v. Clarence Thompson. Judgment affirmed and record remitted to court below for purpose of execution.

Indictment for murder. Before FRONEFIELD, P.J.

The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.

Verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, with penalty fixed at death, and judgment and sentence thereon. Defendant appealed.

Errors assigned, among others, were various portions of charge.

Judgment is affirmed, and the record is remitted to the court below for the purpose of execution.

John J. Stetser, for appellant.

Wm. J. MacCarter, Jr., former District Attorney, with him Wm. B. McClenachan, Jr., District Attorney, and C. William Kraft, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.

Before KEPHART, C.J., SCHAFFER, DREW, LINN and BARNES, JJ.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE BARNES:

This is an appeal from a judgment and sentence upon a verdict of murder in the first degree, with the penalty fixed at death.

The defendant was convicted of the killing of Maude Vivian Hoopes, on January 15, 1935, while committing burglary in the home of the deceased. The defendant offered no evidence at his trial. Most of the facts were undisputed. The story of the defendant, set forth in unsigned confessions, was placed in evidence without objection, and agrees with the testimony of the Commonwealth's witnesses.

The record discloses that about midnight, January 14, 1935, the defendant left his home in Chester, armed with a .38 calibre revolver, for the purpose of robbing a house. He had no particular house in mind, and selected the house in which the deceased lived with her husband, Carlos A. Hoopes, on Twin Oaks Road, in Upper Chichester Township, Delaware County. He reached the home of the deceased in the early morning of January 15, 1935, saw that the house was in darkness, and effected an entrance by opening a porch window, where he found a key to the front door. He unlocked the door with this key and entered the house. This key had been left for use that night by Murray H. Taylor, a cousin of deceased, who lived at the Hoopes residence. Defendant ascended the steps to the second floor when he heard someone entering the front door, and quickly hid in a closet in the hallway.

The deceased and her husband occupied the front bedroom on the second floor, and had retired early in the evening of January 14th. She was awakened about 2:45 A.M. and detected the presence of the defendant. She aroused her husband, and as he did not possess a weapon, she called to his assistance a next door neighbor, John T. Truitt. Truitt came over the porch roof into the Hoopes bedroom, armed with a .25 calibre pistol, and went to the closet door in the second floor hallway. Hoopes was behind Truitt, and Mrs. Hoopes followed both men. Opening the door to the closet, he saw defendant, and immediately there was an exchange of shots, in which the defendant was wounded. Truitt then drew back out of the line of fire. Defendant extended his arm from the closet, pistol pointed in the direction of the front bedroom where Mrs. Hoopes was standing, and fired again. A bullet struck Mrs. Hoopes, entered her breast and went through her body. She fell at the foot of the bed within a few feet of the front window, and died before reaching the hospital.

The defendant made his escape from the house, but after a few hours was apprehended and arrested in Chester. Upon discovery that he was wounded, he was taken to Chester Hospital. Subsequently, he accompanied officers to the scene of the crime and retraced in detail his movements before and after the killing. A right-hand leather glove was found in the house, and when the officers apprehended defendant, he had the mate to it in his possession. He led the officers to the place where he had thrown the revolver on the night of the shooting, and they recovered it.

A bullet from defendant's revolver was found on the floor of the front bedroom in which Mrs. Hoopes was standing at the time she was shot. This was a .38 calibre bullet and was not flattened by being stopped in its flight. There was considerable evidence accounting for the bullets fired both by defendant and Truitt, which it is not necessary to discuss in detail.

It is assigned as error that the trial judge made it appear that it was a bullet from the defendant's gun which caused the death of Mrs. Hoopes. The complaint is made that he charged the jury that the bullet found on the floor after the shooting, near where the body lay, was a larger one than the bullet fired from the Truitt revolver, and finally, that "the doctor testified that Mrs. Hoopes died from this gunshot wound." Further, defendant complains that the trial judge did not adequately present to the jury the evidence in support of his contention that the bullet which killed Mrs. Hoopes was fired from Truitt's pistol, but reviewed at greater length and with emphasis the evidence supporting the opposite theory of the Commonwealth. There were no objections made to this instruction at the conclusion of the charge, even though the court inquired of counsel "Is there any mistake you want me to correct while the jury is here?" nor was it assigned as a reason in the court below in the argument for a new trial. However, when the statement complained of is read with the preceding portion of his charge, it is clear that the trial judge did not intend to, and in fact, did not convey...