Commonwealth v. Gearhardt

Citations

• 205 Pa. 387
• 54 A. 1029
• 1903 Pa. LEXIS 580

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Murder—Insanity.</p> <p>Where on the trial of an indictment for murder, the evidence shows beyond doubt that the killing was premeditated and deliberate, and the defense is that the prisoner at the time was suffering from delirium following typhoid fever, and the court instructs the jury that if the prisoner was laboring under such form of insanity at the time of the killing, and that it was of such a degree as to blind him to the natural consequences of his moral duty and to destroy his perceptions of right and wrong, he was wholly unaccountable, the prisoner has no standing to complain of a verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree.</p> <p>Criminal law — Murder—Evidence—Laymen as witnesses.</p> <p>On the trial of an indictment for murder where the defense is insanity, laymen who are called as witnesses for the commonwealth, after stating their opportunities of knowledge, may be permitted to state that they saw nothing in the conduct of the prisoner which indicated to them unsoundness of mind.</p> <p>Criminal law — Murder—Separation of jury — Barber.</p> <p>While it is reprehensible practice to permit jurors during a murder trial to separate so far as to go to a barber shop, although under charge of an officer, yet if there is no evidence at all of communication on the part of outsiders with the separated jurymen by reason of this separation, a verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree will not be set aside.</p>