174 Pa. 211 | Pa. | 1896
Opinion by
This is a voluminous record. An examination of it shows that the trial of the defendant furnished some unlooked-for situations and dramatic incidents, but no one of them seems to have been the result of anything irregular or sensational in the manner or rulings of the learned trial judge. On the other hand it is apparent that they were due to the extraordinary character of the circumstances with which the defendant had surrounded himself, and to his interference with the usual metnods of trial. Indeed the assignments of error, although thirteen in number, have been intended to raise no questions
The fifth' and sixth assignments are in effect but a different mode of raising the question we have just considered. They complain of the submission of the testimony of Miss Yoke to the jury. She had been examined very fully as to the movements of the prisoner on that Sunday on which he had stated to Mr. Linden, superintendent of police, that he saw and arranged the dead body of Pitezel in the Callowhill street house. This evidence the learned judge referred to, and submitted to the jury. It is not suggested that her evidence is not fairly repeated, nor that any statement is attributed by the court to her that she did not make. The burden of the assignment of error must therefore be that the testimony was treated by the learned judge as competent and as properly before the jury. This was not an error for the reasons given when treating of the question of the competency of the witness, and we do not see that it was inconsistent with the action of the learned judge in submitting that question to the jury, since it was necessary, at least provisionally, to call their attention to the effect of the testimony and the questions to which it was related. These assignments are therefore overruled. The thirteenth assignment should be considered in this connection as it is directed against the action of the court in submitting to the jury the question of the existence of a legal marriage between the prisoner and Miss Yoke at the time she was called as a witness, and the direction to them to consider, or to exclude from consideration, her testimony as they might find upon that question. We have already said that while the submission of the question might not have been necessary, we cannot see that it did the prisoner any harm. The verdict undoubtedly shows that the jury decided this question against the prisoner, but so we think the learned judge should have done if he had undertaken to pronounce upon the effect of Miss Yoke’s testimony in regard to the legality of her marriage to the prisoner. The prisoner cannot complain that he should be taken at his word upon this question; and the story told by him to his father’s family which Miss Yoke afterwards called to his attention, and his excuse made to her for marrying her while he had a wife living at Gilmanton are enough to dis
In opening his case it was natural for the district attorney testate, indeed it was his duty towards the prisoner to state fully.,
/’The next question^following the natural order of the assignments, is that raised by the eighth. It ¿relates to the admission of the story told by Mrs. Pitezel about the manner in which she saw and recognized the remains of three of her children within a few weeks after the death of her husband. This was part of the general story of her search after her husband whom she supposed to be still alive, and the three children who were kept just a little way ahead of her until one by one they had disappeared. The search was made under the control and direction of the prisoner. She followed on where he promised her husband would come, and her children would meet her. During all this time he knew her husband was sleeping in the Potters’ field. He knew that first the boy and then Alice and her sister had gone out of sight while under his general care and their bodies had been mutilated or concealed. She saw them, or their remains, at last. When and how she saw them she was allowed to state, and to that extent at least it was competent for her to speak of her children, regardless of the question raised by the assignment of error last considered. The whole story of Mrs. Pitezel has a unity of character; and its incidents are so affected by fhe prisoner’s acts and declarations in regard to her husband, and his whereabouts, that we do not see any reason for rejecting as irrelevant any portion of it. We think also that it had a direct bearing upon the question of motive. At least it was for the jury to say from it whether the persistent concealment of Pitezel’s death from his wife and his representations to her that the insurance money had been obtained by fraud, were not induced by his desire to escape litigation over the money and
The ninth assignment is directed towards a statement made by the learned judge in his charge to the jury. Speaking of the death of Pitezel he said “You will notice by the testimony which was read to you that the doctors who examined him say his death was caused by chloroform poisoning and that it could not have been self administered.” This it is alleged was wholly unwarranted by the evidence. As to the first part of this statement there could be no complaint, for the fact that the deceased came to his death by chloroform poisoning was practically conceded by the prisoner. The contest was over the question whether the poison from which he died was self administered and his death due to suicide, or was feloniously administered by the prisoner, and his death due to murder. In the interview which was testified to by R. J. Linden, superintendent of police, the prisoner gave his own account of Pitezel’s death. He found him as he alleged on the floor of a third story room in the Callowhill street house, dead. He said he was led to the third floor by a note left for him on the table in the front room on the first floor, directing him to search for a letter in a bottle in a closet opening off the same room. In the bottle he says he found a long letter telling of the purpose of the writer to commit suicide and that his body would be found on the third floor. Going to that floor he alleges he found Pitezel, dead. A large bottle with the chloroform stood near by and leading from it to the dead man’s mouth was a tube with a quill inserted in it so as to reduce the aperture for the flow of the fluid. He says he felt that the appearances of suicide should be removed or a defense might be made to the policy upon that ground. To do this he dragged the body down to the second floor, broke the bottle, scattered some inflammable liquid over the face and beard of the dead man and set it on fire to give to the body and the room the appearance of an explosion, and the happening of death by accident. The theory of the defense included therefore the idea that Pitezel’s death was due to chloroform poisoning, and the objection must relate therefore only to the statement that the doctors had testified that the poison could not have been self administered. The post mortem examination had disclosed the presence of an ounce and a half
The eleventh assignment alleges error in the answer to a point submitted on behalf of the prisoner. The instruction asked by the point was somewhat involved. It was in substance a request for an instruction that if the jury should believe the deceased died from chloroform poisoning, and that it was possible for him to have administered it to himself, and that this theory was as consistent with the facts in the case as that it was administered with criminal intent by the prisoner, then the verdict should be not guilty. This was another way of saying that if the theory of suicide was as consistent with the facts as the theory of murder then the prisoner should be acquitted, and it might have been affirmed without more. The answer though not categorical was in effect an affirmance. It was, “ If you believe he (the deceased) did it himself, why of course the prisoner is not guilty.” When to this is added the general instruction that the burden of proving the guilt of the prisoner beyond a reasonable doubt remains upon the commonwealth from the beginning to the end of the trial, it is very clear that the jury could not have been misled. If therefore the jury adopted the theory of suicide, or if being unable to adopt it they were yet unable to accept beyond a reasonable doubt the theory of murder, in either event they were told the verdict should be not guilty. This fully guarded the rights of the prisoner, even if it be con
This brings us naturally to the tenth assignment of error which denies the clearness and adequacy of the exposition by the learned judge of the doctrine of the reasonable doubt. The passage from the charge embodied in the assignment of error is the least important part of the instruction given to the jury upon this subject, and does not fairly represent the learned judge. He said in immediate connection with the passage complained of, “ In all criminal cases, gentlemen, it is essential that the defendant shall be convicted by evidence which persuades the jury of the guilt of the prisoner beyond a reasonable doubt. By a reasonable doubt I do not mean an obstinacy or a resolution not to consider the testimony of the witnesses carefully. But it is that condition of the mind in which hesitancy arises after having given the evidence a fair consideration and you find yourselves unable to come to a conclusion as to the guilt of the prisoner.” This was a full and adequate presentation of the subject. Take the passage embodied in the assignment in connection with that we have just given (and they stand in immediate connection in the charge), and it is apparent that the prisoner has no just ground of complaint because the doctrine of the reasonable doubt was not fully stated, and brought into sufficient prominence.
The remaining assignment is to the whole charge, which it is insisted was wanting in clearness, was not impartial, but was calculated to prejudice the minds of the jurors against the prisoner by giving undue prominence- to such circumstances and considerations as were hurtful to him. It must be borne in mind that the defendant called no witnesses. The evidence before the court and jury was only that of the commonwealth, which had been gathered together for the purpose of clearing up the mystery surrounding the death of Pitezel and fixing responsibility for it upon the prisoner. His real reliance was upon the reasonable doubt. The web of circumstantial evidence that had been woven about him consisted of many threads, but the web taken as. a whole was strong. It was impossible for the learned trial judge to present the case to the jury in an intelligent manner without the strength of the circumstantial evidence being felt. This was not due to the rhetoric of the learned
It may be well before concluding this case to say that the object of a trial before a jury is to ascertain, with as much cer