Commonwealth v. Payne

Citations

• 242 Pa. 394
• 89 A. 559
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 892

Syllabus

<p>• Criminal law — Criminal procedure — Act of March SI, 1860, Section 182, P. L. S82 — Indictments—Allegation of previous convictions — Proof—Evidence—Witnesses—Cross-examination— Charge to jury.</p> <p>1. Section 182 of the Act of March 31, 1860, P. L. 382, providing that, “If any person who has been convicted of any offense, other than murder of the second degree, for which the punishment prescribed by this code is imprisonment by separate or solitary confinement at labor, shall, after such conviction, be guilty of a similar offense, or of any offense for which punishment is directed, he shall in either case, upon conviction, be sentenced to undergo an imprisonment, and be kept at labor not exceeding double the whole period of time which may, by the penal laws of this Commonwealth, be prescribed for the crime of which he is convicted,” requires that the previous conviction of the accused shall be averred in the indictment and that the record of his conviction shall be offered in evidence in support of that averment.</p> <p>2. While only one conviction can be proved under the act, an indictment may aver two convictions, so that if it appear that the prisoner was not convicted of one of the offenses alleged in the indictment, the Commonwealth may offer evidence to show that he was convicted of the other.</p> <p>3. Where an indictment charging the defendant with murder recited the record of defendant’s previous conviction of manslaughter and the record of his previous conviction of rape, the court made no error in refusing to strike from the indictment the record of the conviction of rape, where the identity of the defendant with the person convicted of manslaughter had not been proved; if the Commonwealth had not succeeded in proving such identity and the motion to strike from the indictment the record of the defendant’s conviction of rape had been allowed, the Commonwealth would have been precluded from offering evidence of such conviction.</p> <p>4. The defendan