Commonwealth v. Divomte

Citations

• 262 Pa. 504
• 105 A. 821
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 712

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Murder—Degrees—Definitions—Intention — Erroneous charge — Whether error was harmless.</p> <p>1. The only distinction between murder of the first degree and of tbe second is that in the higher grade the intent to take life is an essential element; while in the latter it is not.</p> <p>2. Where on an indictment for murder the defendant sets up self-defense, a conviction in the first degree will be reversed on appeal, where the trial judge in his charge, after defining correctly the degree of murder of the first degree, murder of the second degree and manslaughter, immediately charges that “if the Commonwealth has failed in this ease to show that tbe killing, which is not denied here, was done with premeditation, then the verdict of the jury would drop to the next degree, and if premeditation or malice aforethought is lacking, then it would be murder of the second degree, and not murder of the first degree.”</p> <p>3. The prisoner was entitled to a clear, unequivocal and unambiguous instruction, that if he struck the fatal blow with no other intent than to inflict bodily injury upon the man slain, his offense would rise no higher than murder of the second degree.</p> <p>4. Where an erroneous instruction consists of a palpable misstatement of the law, it is not cured by a conflicting or a contradictory one which correctly states the law on the point involved, unless the erroneous instruction is expressly withdrawn from the jury; assuming, as is their duty, that the instructions are all correct, they may as readily follow the incorrect as the correct.</p> <p>5. A defendant in a homicide ease has no standing in an appellate court to complain of an erroneous instruction unless the error contributed to the result reached by the jury.</p>