Commonwealth v. House

Citations

• 223 Pa. 487
• 72 A. 804
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 560

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Assault and battery — Evidence as to another crime.</p> <p>1. A presumption of guilt cannot be raised by proof of a distinct crime unconnected with that laid in the indictment.</p> <p>2. On the trial of an indictment for assault and battery where the charge is that the defendant stabbed a woman on a public street, evidence is inadmissible to show that the defendant on the same evening, but in another street, although in the same neighborhood had attempted to assault another woman.</p> <p>3. On the trial of an indictment for assault and battery where the prosecutrix and a witness positively identified the defendant as the assailant, it is reversible error for the court not to refer to the fact that both witnesses had declared shortly after the assault that the defendant was not the assailant.</p> <p>Criminal law — Evidence—Identity—Reasonable doubt — Good reputation — Charge.</p> <p>4. No class of testimony is more uncertain and less to be relied upon than that as to identity, and where great doubt is cast upon it by the witnesses themselves there is a double reason for submitting it with great caution.</p> <p>5. On the trial of an indictment for a crime it is reversible error for the court to charge as follows: “If there is such a doubt that prevents you arriving at a satisfactory conclusion of guilt, then the defendant is entitled to the benefit of that doubt. On the other hand, — still speaking about this evidence with relation to reputation, — if upon the other hand you are satisfied in view of all the evidence in the case that the defendant is guilty, then the fact that he has previously had a good reputation is not a defense, that is the material that you make use of in ascertaining whether or not he is guilty, and if, looking at that and looking at all the other evidence in the case, you are convinced that this is the guilty man, then your duty is plain and simple. ” Such instructions do not give the accused the benefit of the right to have h