Commonwealth v. Karamarkovic

Citations

• 218 Pa. 405
• 67 A. 650
• 1907 Pa. LEXIS 535

Syllabus

<p>Appeals — Assignments of error — Trivial assignments — Criminal cases.</p> <p>The multiplication of assignments of error upon trivial points having no substantial bearing on the merits of the issue, is always injurious to an appellant’s case, by their inevitable suggestion that the record has been hunted over less to discover real error or injustice than to pick a flaw on which to hang an objection. Assignments of error in criminal cases are particularly open to this inference.</p> <p>Criminal law — Murder—Evidence—Expert—Opinion.</p> <p>Where on a trial of an indictment for murder it is shown that the prisoner when arrested was wearing a hat which belonged to the murdered man, a doctor who has examined both may express an opinion that the location of certain cuts in the hat corresponded to cuts on the head of the murdered man.</p> <p>Where a knife is offered in evidence, and it is shown that it was found at the exact spot where the prisoner was arrested, and it also appears that the murder was committed with a knife, the connection of the knife with the crime is for the jury.</p> <p>Where several objects are offered in evidence and objection is made to the offer as a whole, and certain of the objects are properly admissible, there is no error in overruling the objection.</p> <p>Circumstantial evidence is always admissible on the trial of an indictment for murder, whether there were eyewitnesses of the crime, or not.</p> <p>On the trial of an indictment for murder, the district attorney is not bound to call as a witness everybody that anybody else may think desirable. The responsibility is upon him, and a large measure of discretion must be allowed him in meeting it. While he should try the case fairly in all respects, yet he is the commonwealth’s officer with a duty to take the commonwealth’s view, and present it with zeal.</p> <p>Where there is nothing to show that the commonwealth knew anything about an alleged eyewitness until another witness went on the stan