Commonwealth v. Wooley

Citations

• 259 Pa. 249
• 102 A. 947
• 1918 Pa. LEXIS 401

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Murder—Voluntary manslaughter — Involuntary manslaughter — Charge—Conflicting instructions- — -Erroneous instructions — Pointing gun to frighten — Evidence—Self-defense— Scope of direct examination of defendant- — -New trial.</p> <p>1. Where the plea to an indictment for murder is that defendant was acting in self-defense, it is reversible error to refuse to permit the defendant, while being- examined as a witness in his own behalf, to be asked whether at the time he fired the shot he thought he was in peril of his life or of great bodily harm. The weight to be accorded such testimony is for the jury.</p> <p>2. In such case the trial judge erred in refusing to correct such error on the ground that, in his judgment,.there had been developed on the cross-examination of the defendant what would have been an affirmative answer to the disallowed question, where it appeared that in no one of defendant’s answers to the questions put to him by the. district attorney did he say that, when he shot deceased, he thought he was in peril of his life or of great bodily harm. His mere admission that he was in fear is not the equivalent of his unqualified declaration that he had acted in self-defense because he thought that he was in peril of his life or of great bodily harm.</p> <p>3. Where correct and erroneous instructions are given in a charge it is- not to be conjectured, especially in a capital case, which the jury followed.</p> <p>4. On the trial of an indictment for murder where defendant testified that when he took the gun into his hands he was under the impression that it was unloaded and that his intention was to use it to frighten the deceased away, the error committed in charging that if such were the honest belief and purpose of the defendant he would be guilty of voluntary manslaughter, the trial judge inadvertently using the word “voluntary” instead of “involuntary,” is not cured by the fact that the court had in a previous part of the charge carefu