Commonwealth v. Long

Citations

• 17 Pa. Super. 641
• 1901 Pa. Super. LEXIS 377

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Involuntary manslaughter — Shooting an escaping burglar — Justifiable and excusable homicide.</p> <p>In Pennsylvania if homicide is justifiable or excusable there must be an entire acquittal.</p> <p>When a party may be lawfully arrested for felony, and he knowing the cause flies, so that he cannot be taken otherwise than by killing him, the constable pursuing him will be justified in killing him; or a private person will in like manner be justified if he can prove that the deceased was actually guilty of a felony.</p> <p>Where a householder sees a burglar escaping from his house and pursues him on to the porch of the house, and when he is about twenty-five feet away from the burglar, and thinking that the latter is about to escape, and that notice is useless, shoots at his legs so as to maim or mark him, and as the shot is fired the burglar jumps from the porch and receives the charge in his back, resulting in his death, and the householder is arrested and indicted for manslaughter, it is error for the courtto refuse a request to charge as follow? : “ If the jury find under the law and the evidence that the shooting of the deceased in the leg would have been justifiable, and if they further find that by a pure accident and without any carelessness on the part of the defendant, the shot produced death by enterihg a vital part of the deceased, then the defendant’s action was equally justifiable.”</p>