Commonwealth v. Campbell

Citations

• 31 Pa. Super. 9
• 1906 Pa. Super. LEXIS 143

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Assault and battery — Evidence—Indictment—Charge.</p> <p>An indictment for assault and battery charged that the prisoner inflicted upon the prosecutrix grevious bodily harm by striking her on the head with a chair. At the trial the prosecutrix testified that among other injuries, the prisoner knocked her down with a chair, thereby causing a lump on her head, which got sore, and was not healed at the time of the trial. Held, that it was competent for a physician to testify that the wound might have been caused by a blunt instrument, and that from an examination made within four or five months of the trial he was of the opinion that the injuries might have been inflicted a year before the trial at the time averred in the indictment for the assault.</p> <p>Rule of court — Witness—Evidence.</p> <p>The court may adopt and apply in a proper case a rule of court to the effect that “the re-examination of a witness shall be only in respect to explanation of any new matter elicited on the cross-examination unless with leave of the court where the matter had been overlooked in chief.”</p> <p>Appeals — Assignments of error — Waiver of error.</p> <p>An assignment of error which embraces more than one point or refers to more than one bill of exceptions violates rule XIV.</p> <p>Criminal law — Reasonable doubt — Charge.</p> <p>A pi-isoner in a criminal trial has no ground to complain of a charge as follows: “the presumption is that the defendant is innocent, and the presumption continues up until the moment that you are satisfied by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of his guilt. This reasonable doubt is such a doubt that fully arises from the evidence. It should not be a mere whim or surmise. There should be such a doubt as there is a reason for and which fully arises out of the evidence. . . . We would say further that the doubt arises from all of the evidence, and if the doubt arises from a single juryman the other eleven jurymen should come to the mind o