Shaffner v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 03 July 1872
• Citation: 72 Pa. 60
• Parties: Shaffner <I>versus</I> The Commonwealth.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

72 Pa. 60

Shaffner versus The Commonwealth.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 20, 1872.

July 3, 1872.

May 20th 1872.

Before THOMPSON, C. J., AGNEW, SHARSWOOD and WILLIAMS, JJ.

Error to the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Dauphin county: Of May Term 1872. No. 73.

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A. J. Herr and Hamilton Alricks (with whom was R. A. Lamberton), for plaintiff in error.—The admission of the evidence as to Shaffner's death required the defendant to meet a charge for which he was not indicted, and to defend two distinct charges in one trial. Evidence of the commission of one crime is not admissible to prove another: Commonwealth v. Ferrigan, 8 Wright 387; Stone v. State, 4 Humphreys 27; State v. Wisdom, 8 Porter 511; Rex v. Ellis, 2 Russell 698; Rex v. Birdseye, 4 C. & P. 386; United States v. Mitchell, 2 Dallas 357; 1 Greenl. Ev., sect. 52, 1 Phillips Ev. 645, and note; 1 Chitty's Cr. Law 564; Roscoe's Crim. Ev. 70. As to the charge of the court: Lane v. Commonwealth, 9 P. F. Smith 371; Rhodes v. Commonwealth, 12 Wright 396.

J. M. Wiestling, District-Attorney, and W. MacVeagh (with whom was S. H. Alleman), for Commonwealth.—The evidence connecting Susan and John Sharlock with the defendant tended to show his motive: 2 Russell on Crimes 774 et seq. to 779; and this is not affected by the fact that it proved another offence for which defendant might be indicted: Roscoe's Crim. Ev. 86; 1 Phillips on Ev. 767; 1 Whart. Crim. L., sects. 647-649; Heath's Case, 1 Harrison 507; Dunn v. State, 2 Arkansas Rep. 244; Roscoe's Crim. Ev. 93; Reg v. Garner, 4 Foster & Finlason 346.

The opinion of the court was delivered, July 3d 1872, by AGNEW, J.

It is a general rule that a distinct crime, unconnected with that laid in the indictment, cannot be given in evidence against a prisoner. It is not proper to raise a presumption of guilt, on the ground, that having committed one crime, the depravity it exhibits makes it likely he would commit another. Logically, the commission of an independent offence is not proof, in itself, of the commission of another crime. Yet it cannot be said to be without influence on the mind, for certainly, if one be shown to be guilty of another crime equally heinous, it will prompt a more ready belief, that he might have committed the one with which he is charged; it therefore predisposes the mind of the juror to believe the prisoner guilty. To make one criminal act evidence of another, a connection between them must have existed in the mind of the actor, linking them together for some purpose he intended to accomplish; or it must be necessary to identify the person of the actor, by a connection which shows that he who committed the one must have done the other. Without this obvious connection, it is not only unjust to the prisoner to compel him to acquit himself of two offences instead of one, but it is detrimental to justice to burthen a trial with multiplied issues that tend to confuse and mislead the jury. The most guilty criminal may be innocent of other offences charged against him, of which, if fairly tried, he might acquit himself. From the nature and prejudicial character of such evidence, it is obvious it should not be received, unless the mind plainly perceives that the commission of the one tends, by a visible connection, to prove the commission of the other by the prisoner. If the evidence be so dubious that the judge does not clearly perceive the connection, the benefit of the doubt should be given to the prisoner, instead of suffering the minds of the jurors to be prejudiced by an independent fact, carrying with it no proper evidence of the particular guilt.

We come now to the offer of evidence received by the court. Leaving out that part relating to the prisoner's first wife, which the court rejected as too remote, the offer was to prove that John Sharlock died from poison, the same kind of which Nancy, the prisoner's wife, died; that his symptoms were the same as hers, that the prisoner attended upon both, and that both died at the prisoner's house; Sharlock on the 17th of February 1871, and Nancy, the wife, on the 11th of June 1871. In substance, this was an offer to show that the prisoner poisoned Sharlock, as evidence that he also poisoned his own wife. The purpose insisted on, was to show a motive on the part of the prisoner for taking the life of his wife, and that the deaths were so connected that they formed one chain of facts, which could not be ascertained without rendering part of the evidence received unintelligible and incomplete. It is argued that the motive of the prisoner for taking the life of Nancy his wife, was to enable him to obtain her money; and to enable him also to marry Susan, the wife of John Sharlock, who had been the prisoner's paramour, as the means of obtaining her money, which was in the form of an insurance policy, on the life of her husband, John Sharlock, and that in order to carry out this plan, it was necessary first to put Sharlock out of the way.

It is obvious that to connect together the deaths of Sharlock and Nancy, and make the former bear upon the latter, they must have been both contemplated by the prisoner as parts of one plan in his mind, in which the taking of Sharlock's life was part of his purpose of taking the life of Nancy. He must, therefore, have contemplated the death of Nancy before taking the life of Sharlock. In order to let in the poisoning of Sharlock, the judge must have had before his mind some fact or facts exhibiting this pre-existing determination to take Nancy's life. Herein the evidence was defective. Let us...