Commonwealth v. Hollinger
Commonwealth v. Hollinger
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
A careful examination of the record in this case discloses nothing that would warrant us in sustaining any of the assignments of error. The opinion of the learned president judge of the court below, on the motion for a new trial, unanswerably meets every question raised by this appeal. The main question, that is, the measure of evidence necessary to establish insanity as an excuse for crime, and the effect of such evidence when not sufficient to acquit, is also fully discussed in Commonwealth v. Wireback, ante, p. 138, appeal from oyer and terminer of Lancaster, argued January 30,1899, opinion handed down this day, so that nothing further need be said on the subject.
The judgment is affirmed, and it is directed that the record be remitted to the court below that the sentence may be carried into execution according to law.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Joseph Hollinger
- Cited By
- 11 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Criminal law — Murder—Degree of crime — Insanity. On the trial of an indictment for murder where all the evidence, shows a wilful and premeditated killing, an instruction to the jury that if the killing was wilful and premeditated they may bring in a verdict of murder of the first degree, without further instructing them that they have power to render a verdict of murder of a less degree, is not error as a binding instruction. Insanity can be pleaded as a defense to a charge of crime, but not in mitigation of the degree- of guilt. When the jury are instructed that, if defendant was insane, he should be acquitted, he is not prejudiced by a charge that evidence of insanity can have no effect in reducing the degree of the murder. The courts do not ask the jury to undertake the impossible task of discriminating between degrees of insanity so as to find a prisoner incapable of forming a deliberate and premeditated intent to kill, while he has still so much sanity that he is a person of sound memory and discretion, as he must be to be guilty of murder even in the second degree. Per Simon-ton, P. J.