Commonwealth v. Rhoads

Citations

• 23 Pa. Super. 512
• 1903 Pa. Super. LEXIS 104

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Voluntary manslaughter — Murder — Arrest — Misdemeanor.</p> <p>When an officer in attempting to make a lawful arrest for a misdemeanor is met with forcible resistance, he is not obliged to retreat but may use such force as may be reasonably necessary to accomplish the arrest; yet he is not justified in taking life even if the arrest cannot be otherwise effected, except when the resistance is so violent as to put the officer in danger of death or greatly bodily harm.</p> <p>A deputy sheriff armed with a warrant to arrest a person charged with assault and battery is guilty of voluntary manslaughter if he shoots and kills the accused while the latter is fleeing from arrest, making no attempt at resistance, and not in any way imperiling the officer’s life. In such a case it is no justification that the officer had been told that the deceased was a desperate character.</p> <p>Criminal law — Trial—Evidence—•Witnesses—Discretion of the court.</p> <p>While it is the duty of the district attorney in a homicide case to present all the testimony of the material facts, whether adverse to the defendant or favorable to him, the court in its discretion may limit the witnesses to be called. Thus, where all the facts connected with the killing have been disclosed by witnesses for the commonwealth, the court may properly hold that the testimony of another witness may be reserved for the defense.</p> <p>Criminal law — Homicide—Dying declaration — Evidence.</p> <p>On the trial of a homicide case ground is sufficiently laid for introducing a sworn written statement of the deceased to the effect that he was shot by the prisoner, where it appears that when the deceased fell at the time of the shooting he exclaimed to bystanders that the prisoner had shot him, that he must die, that he would die like a man, and that thereafter, and before the paper was sworn to, he was informed by two surgeons that he could not live.</p>