70 A.2d 684 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1949
Argued November 14, 1949. Defendant was found guilty of indecent exposure and sodomy. The court below suspended sentence on the conviction for indecent exposure but imposed sentence upon the other indictment, and defendant files these two appeals. Only two questions require discussion, both arising under the court's charge to the jury.
The court told the jury that "In this case the sole issue isas to the evidence of the defendant's connection with thealleged occurrence [sodomy and indecent exposure] and I will not define the crimes for you because the crimes as chargedwere actually committed by someone. There was an indecent assault and there was an unnatural relation with this boy and someone." (Italics supplied.) Palpably the court was in error, for one of the matters to be determined — and essential to conviction — was whether or not the crimes charged had been committed. In Turner v. Commonwealth,
Appellant also questions the charge of the court in regard to alibi. The court said, inter alia: "That means that when you consider the evidence offered by the Commonwealth, with the evidence offered by the defendant [as being somewhere else] . . . if you feel that the evidence offered by the defendant fairly preponderates or fairly outweighs that offered by the Commonwealth, then you would have a right to conclude that the defendant has met the burden . . . of establishing his alibi by a fair preponderance of the evidence." In Commonwealth v.Mills,
It is important that trial courts do not extemporaneously define such matters as reasonable doubt (Commonwealth v.Tachoir et al.,
The judgments or sentence are reversed and new trials ordered. *245