Logue v. The Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 25 February 1861
• Citation: 38 Pa. 265
• Parties: Charles Logue <I>versus</I> The Commonwealth.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

38 Pa. 265

Charles Logue versus The Commonwealth.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

February 25, 1861.

ERROR to the Oyer and Terminer of Clarion county.

The case was argued by John D. Mahon and B. J. Reid, for plaintiff in error, and by William L. Corbett and Campbell & Lamberton, for the Commonwealth.

The opinion of the court was delivered, February 25th 1861, by THOMPSON, J.

We need not recapitulate the facts of this case, and will proceed at once to the consideration of what seem to be the debatable grounds in it, and they are to be found in the views of the learned judge on the subject of self-defence. But little else needs to be noticed; the charge and ruling of the court on every other point of the case being, so far as we can discover, just and accurate.

The sixth and tenth assignments of error present the questions now for consideration. The sixth is as follows — and the tenth is the same in substance — "The court erred in charging as follows, (which we suppose to be the qualifications referred to, in answer to the fifth, sixth and seventh points;) `The prisoner's counsel contended that the homicide might be justifiable or excusable, if Logue, the prisoner, had reasonable cause to apprehend danger to his life, and if it appeared imminent. I cannot so instruct you unless there was actual danger to his life, and not occasioned by resistance.'"

Divesting ourselves of impressions derived from certain facts in the case, and viewing the prisoner in the light of one lawfully passing along the highway in the night-time (for we may not judge of facts which might change this aspect of the prisoner's case) was the instruction right?

It is only in this light that we, as a court of error, can deal with the instructions. We cannot determine their accuracy by a recurrence to matters of fact, which might defeat a hypothesis. We must not be guided in our determination of the question whether the law was rightfully administered, because we may believe that the prisoner was a felon escaping from the commission of a flagitious crime at the time of the homicide, with a determination to resist all who should attempt to arrest him. These were considerations for the jury, under the evidence, and if proved, would undoubtedly change the prisoner's chance of escape under the law of self-defence. It is only on the ground of entire blamelessness that he might invoke the law to the extent of justifying or excusing him in taking life, and then by showing that the assault was of such a character as to induce a reasonable apprehension that he was in danger of losing his own life, or suffering some enormous bodily harm, and so the court should have charged. The learned judge thought that the apprehension of imminent peril would not excuse. "The danger must be actual."

Here then was a wide difference between the extent of the ground claimed as covered by the law of self-defence, and that laid down by the court, namely: the difference between a reasonable apprehension of the danger of loss of life or limb arising from circumstances appearing to indicate such a design on the part of the assailant, but which may in fact have been unreal; and that announced by the court, that nothing will excuse a homicide in self-defence but actual danger. It was of this last position that Parker, J., said, in the celebrated trial of Selfridge in Boston, in 1805, that such "a rule would lay too heavy a burthen on poor humanity." In treating of excusable homicide, Wharton, in his valuable work on Criminal Law, in section 1021 says, "Where the assault may have been so fierce as not to allow him (the slayer) to yield a step without manifest danger of his life or enormous bodily harm, and then in his defence, if there be no other way of saving his own life, he may kill his assailant instantly." This is the principle of all the books, in case of actual danger.

After treating of many aspects of self-defence under such circumstances, in section 1026, same book, another rule is given, "If the apprehension of an immediate and actual danger to life be sincere, though unreal, it is in like manner a defence;" and it is added, "although this proposition, in its present shape, has been accepted with great reluctance, and in very recent times by the court, and should be always applied with extreme caution, it has at all periods been practically recognised." And Lovett's Case, Cro. Charles 488, is cited. That was a case where an alarm having been given by a servant that there were robbers in the house, the defendant, with a drawn sword in his hand, slew a servant girl of the neighbourhood, who being lawfully in the house at...