251 Pa. 247 | Pa. | 1916
Opinion by
Defendant was tried for the murder of Frank Jaroskie, with whom he appears to have had quarrels prior to the alleged commission of the crime. Jaroskie was a frequent visitor at defendant’s home, and the latter suspected and accused him of improper intimacy with his wife. On the night preceding the homicide, defendant, on returning from work, had an altercation with his wife concerning the condition of the house, etc., whereupon the wife sent to a near-by saloon and called in her brothers. Jaroskie came tO' the house shortly afterwards and quarreled with defendant. The latter then left the house to secure the assistance of a police officer. Failing in this he returned to his home and found the other persons still in the house .and engaged in playing cards. Defendant and Jaroskie then shook hands and agreed to forget their differences. The entire party sat up until a late hour, when one of the wife’s brothers and his wife retired to an upper room and others left the house, defendant and his wife and Jaroskie remaining in the kitchen. Defendant testified that, at an early hour in the morning while dosing in a chair by the stove, he was awakened by a noise and found his wife in a compromising situation with deceased. Upon remonstrating with him, deceased attempted to take a revolver from his pocket, whereupon defendant seized a stove poker and struck him on the head, his death resulting from the blow a few days later.
The testimony of the witnesses for the Commonwealth was to the effect that no improper intercourse between deceased and defendant’s wife had taken place, but, on the contrary, defendant struck deceased while he was asleep. The jury returned a verdict of murder in the second degree, and, from judgment entered thereon, defendant appealed.
The first assignment of error is to the admission of the testimony relative to the conduct of defendant’s wife and her improper relations with deceased. In this testi
The second, third, fourth and fifth assignments all raise the question of the competency of testimony to show defendant had committed other crimes not connected with the case on trial. This testimony was introduced by the Commonwealth in rebuttal on the theory that defendant had given evidence as to good character, and thus brought himself within the first exception referred to in the Act of March 15, 1911, P. L. 20, Section 1, which provides that “Hereafter any person charged with any crime, and called as a witness in his own behalf,
In the third, fourth, and fifth assignments, the Commonwealth was permitted to show by other witnesses that defendant had committed other offenses, for the purpose of showing his bad reputation. This evidence does not come within the Act of 1911, since that act ap
The seventh, eighth and ninth assignments complain of error in the charge. The charge as a whole was fair and did substantial justice to defendant, and there is nothing in these assignments which in our opinion could have misled the jury, either as to law or facts governing the case. The reference in the eighth assignment to defendant’s testimony as a “story” was apparently used in the sense of a narration or description of the event as he contends it occurred, and this clearly appears when read in connection with other parts of the charge, and rebuts any possible inference that the jury might have accepted the word as having been meant in the sense of a false narration.
The ninth assignment of error complains of the statement made by the court to the effect that there was no attempt by defendant to put deceased out of his home after the first quarrel early in the evening until the next morning, when defendant alleges he said to deceased,
The complaint in the tenth assignment of error is to the refusal of the trial judge to permit defendant to show a former difficulty between him and deceased and that defendant had a reasonable apprehension of danger from an attack. We think the court erred in excluding this testimony. It had a direct bearing on the relation between the parties and the condition of their minds when the crime was committed: Sayres v. Commonwealth, 88 Pa. 291. The fact that an attack was made by deceased on defendant at the time mentioned, and the circumstances leading up thereto, as well as the result of the encounter, had a direct bearing on the defense set up and this testimony should have been admitted.
The third, fourth, fifth and tenth assignments of error are sustained, judgment reversed and a new trial ordered. *