Commonwealth v. Williams

• Decision Date: 14 October 1938
• Docket Number: 207-1938
• Citation: 133 Pa.Super. 104,1 A.2d 812
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Williams, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

1 A.2d 812

133 Pa.Super. 104

Commonwealth v. Williams, Appellant

No. 207-1938

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

October 14, 1938

Argued April 11, 1938.

Appeal from judgment of O. and T. Washington Co., Feb. T., 1937, No 2, in case of Commonwealth v. Wendell Williams.

Indictment for involuntary manslaughter. Before Brownson, P. J.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.

Verdict of guilty and judgment and sentence thereon. Defendant appealed.

Error assigned was ordering finding defendant guilty and sentence.

Judgment reversed.

George I. Bloom, of Bloom & Bloom, with him Sherman H. Siegel, for appellant.

Wallace S. Gourley, First Assistant District Attorney, with him James C. Bane, District Attorney, for appellee.

Before Keller, P. J., Cunningham, Baldrige, Stadtfeld, Parker and Rhodes, JJ.

OPINION

Rhodes, J.

Defendant Wendell Williams, was convicted in the court below of the involuntary manslaughter of one James Vincent, and he has appealed. The death occurred when an automobile operated by appellant collided with a telephone pole. Appellant had been a duly licensed operator for several years prior to 1936, but had failed to renew his operator's license in 1936, and had no such license at the time of the accident on December 25th of that year. The verdict of the jury was as follows: "And now, to-wit: February 12, 1937, we the Jurors empaneled in the above case, find the defendant not guilty on any ground other than his not having an operator's license or permit, but having found that he did not have such a license or permit our verdict is subject to the opinion of the Court upon the question of law whether or not his driving without one was sufficient in and of itself to render him guilty, which question was reserved in the charge for argument before all the judges. If the court should be of opinion that such driving was in itself such an unlawful act as to render defendant criminally responsible for the death of James Vincent then we find defendant guilty; but if the court should be of the contrary opinion upon this question of law, then we find defendant not guilty."

After argument upon the question of law so reserved to the court, the court below was of the opinion that such unlicensed driving was an unlawful act sufficient to render appellant guilty of involuntary manslaughter as a matter of law, and accordingly found appellant guilty of that crime, and sentence was imposed.

It will be observed that appellant has been absolved by the verdict of any negligence or recklessness in the operation of the motor vehicle, and the conviction must be sustained, if at all, upon the ground that the death occurred while appellant was operating the motor vehicle in violation of section 601, art. 6, of The Vehicle Code of May 1, 1929, P. L. 905, as amended by the Act of June 22, 1931, P. L. 751, section 2, 75 PS § 161, reading as follows: "No person, except those expressly exempted under this act, shall operate any motor vehicle upon a highway in this Commonwealth, unless such person has been licensed as an operator or a learner by the department under the provisions of this act," and providing a penalty therefor.

In Pennsylvania there is no statutory definition of involuntary manslaughter, but in Com. v. Mayberry, 290 Pa. 195, at page 198, 138 A. 686, at pages 687, 688, it was said to consist in "'the killing of another without malice and unintentionally, but in doing some unlawful act not amounting to a felony nor naturally tending to cause death or great bodily harm, or in negligently doing some act lawful in itself, or by the negligent omission to perform a legal duty': 29 Corpus Juris, page 1148; Wharton on Homicide (3d ed.) section 211; Com. v. Micuso, 273 Pa. 474 ; Com. v. Gable, 7 Serge. & Rawle 423; 13 R. C. L. page 784."

The unlawful act proven in the instant case was neither a felony nor did it naturally tend to cause death or great bodily harm. By the Act of April 22, 1794, 3 Smith's Laws, p. 186, "manslaughter" was divided into two classes, "voluntary manslaughter" (section 7), and "involuntary manslaughter, happening in consequence of an unlawful act" (section 8), and this was substantially re-enacted in section 79 of the Criminal Code (Act of March 31, 1860, P. L. 382, as amended by Act of April 11, 1929, P. L. 513, 18 PS § 2226). Com. v. Gill, 120 Pa.Super. 22, 28, 182 A. 103.

A motor vehicle is not an outlawed instrumentality, but its use is lawful only under certain conditions. The failure of one to procure an operator's license, without more, is not an offense under The Vehicle Code. It is only when the omission to secure an operator's license is coupled with the operation of a motor vehicle that it becomes cognizable by the law. In other words, under section 601 of The Vehicle Code, supra, any person, except those exempt, who operates a motor vehicle commits an unlawful act, but it becomes lawful when the operator possesses a license.

We think that there is merit in appellant's contention that in order to sustain the conviction the Commonwealth is obliged to show that the death was the result of, or happened in consequence of, the unlawful act as we have defined it, and that the Commonwealth failed to do so in the instant case. In Com. v. Ushka, 130 Pa.Super. 600, at page 604, 198 A. 465, at page 467, we said, quoting from Com. v. Gill, supra, 120 Pa.Super. 22, at page 35, 182 A. 103, at page 108: " 'If the act is unlawful, -- that is, is forbidden by law, illegal, contrary to law, -- and the death of another results as a consequence of it, it constitutes involuntary manslaughter.'"

In our opinion, the language of the above cited statutes and cases implies more than that the unlawful act should be a remote unit in a sequence of events culminating in a fatality, and requires such act to be something more than a factor which might be denominated more properly as an attendant condition than a cause of the death.

We find no decisions of our appellate courts which we consider determinative. The Commonwealth and the court below rely upon Com. v. Ernesto et al., 93 Pa.Super. 339, and Com. v. Mango, 101 Pa.Super. 385. In these cases it was found on sufficient evidence that the acts in which defendants were engaged were the causes of the deaths. There was a direct relationship or a causal connection between the illegal acts and the deaths. Hence it could be said that the deaths happened in consequence of the unlawful acts in which the defendants were engaged. The recent case of Com. v. Samson, 130 Pa.Super. 65, 196 A. 564, is distinguishable from the instant case. In the Samson case there was a causal connection between defendant's negligence to perform his legal duty and the collapse of the building which resulted in seven lives being lost. We there held, at page 73: "Even if we assume that the appellant's failure to obtain a license to operate these premises as a tenement house does not constitute a basis for a conviction of manslaughter, the verdict, in our judgment, can nevertheless be sustained, as there was sufficient evidence of negligence, with elements of recklessness in disregarding the safety of the occupants, to constitute culpable negligence."

But the question has been considered in other jurisdictions, ^[1] and answered favorably to the position taken by appellant in this case.

In Potter v. State, 162 Ind. 213, 70 N.E. 129, 102 Am. S. R. 198, 64 L. R. A. 942, 1 Ann. Cas. 32, one of the participants in a friendly struggle was killed by the accidental discharge of a pistol unlawfully carried in the pocket of the other. The Indiana statute provided: "Whoever unlawfully kills any human being without malice, express or implied, either voluntarily, upon a sudden heat, or involuntarily, but in the commission of some unlawful act, is guilty of manslaughter . . . ." Defendant was convicted of manslaughter, and in reversing judgment and awarding a new trial, the court said: "It is undoubtedly true, as a general rule of law, that a person engaged in the commission of an unlawful act is legally responsible for all of the consequences which may naturally or necessarily flow or result from such unlawful act. But before this principle of law can have any application under the facts in the case at bar, it must appear that the homicide was the natural or necessary result of the act of appellant in carrying the revolver in violation of the statute."

In Votre v. State, 192 Ind. 684, 138 N.E. 257, a conviction of...