Commonwealth v. Griffin

Citations

• 42 Pa. Super. 597
• 1910 Pa. Super. LEXIS 388

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Burglary—Larceny—Proof as to other offenses— Identity.</p> <p>1. To make one criminal act evidence of another some connection must exist between them; that connection must be traced in a general design, purpose or plans of the defendant or may be shown by such circumstances of identification as necessarily tend to establish that the person who committed one, must have been guilty of the other.</p> <p>2. On the trial of two persons jointly indicted for burglary and larceny, one of them who pleads'guilty may testify as to other offenses of a similar kind committed practically in the same place within a short and defined period of time, indicating a common purpose between the witness and the codefendant, and also that the codefendant gave his sanction to the crimes and shared in part in the spoils by acting as a depository of the goods stolen by the other.</p> <p>Criminal law — Charge—Good character.</p> <p>3. On the trial of a criminal indictment it is not error for the court to charge as to good character as follows: “Of course all persons have at some time been persons of good character, and many defendants-in courts of justice, up to the time of the commission of the offense of which they are convicted, had a good character, and you will take this into consideration when you come to determine upon the weight and applicability of the testimony as to the good character of the defendant.</p>