43 A.2d 400 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1945
Argued April 9, 1945. Appellant has taken these appeals from the judgments and sentences on verdicts of guilty on two bills of indictment charging sodomy. For obvious reasons, no more of the Commonwealth's evidence will be here detailed than is necessary to the disposition of the questions raised by the appeals. Its sufficiency to support the verdicts is not challenged by appellant's statement of the questions involved in the appeals.
Appellant was the organizer and adult supervisor of a boys' club known as the Mound Builders, having as its object the collection and study of Indian relics to be found in the vicinity of Erie. One of the Commonwealth's witnesses testified that an offense had been committed upon him in appellant's home, where he said he stayed overnight after the club had met there for an evening session of mounting relics for display. On cross-examination, appellant's counsel was prevented from asking the witness whether he had helped mount the relics "or were you smoking dope cigarettes and drinking stale cider that you found in the cellar that evening?" The court also excluded a question to the witness whether appellant had not in fact taken him toward his own home that evening but that instead of going home the witness had jumped out of the car, announcing he was going to sleep with a girl. These questions were found objectionable upon the authority of Com. v. Payne,
Appellant's objection to the inadequacy of the charge of the court on the subject of the weight to be given the testimony of accomplices is without merit. One who voluntarily submits to unnatural carnal knowledge is an accomplice within the meaning of the rule requiring special treatment to be given to testimony emanating from such a doubtful source. Com. v. Howe,
The remaining complaint embraced within appellant's statement of questions involved, which limits the scope of our review, Com.v. Attarian,
All assignments of error are overruled; the judgments are affirmed; and it is ordered that appellant appear in the court below at such time as he may be there called and that he be committed by that court until he shall have complied with his sentence, which had not been served at the time his appeal was made a supersedeas.