Commonwealth v. Coyle

154 A.2d 412, 190 Pa. Super. 509, 1959 Pa. Super. LEXIS 678
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedSeptember 16, 1959
DocketAppeal, No. 72
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 154 A.2d 412 (Commonwealth v. Coyle) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Coyle, 154 A.2d 412, 190 Pa. Super. 509, 1959 Pa. Super. LEXIS 678 (Pa. Ct. App. 1959).

Opinions

Opinion by

Woodside, J.,

This appeal involves the weight to be given to evidence of a blood grouping test which showed that the defendant in a bastardy case could not have been the father of the prosecutrix’s child. The jury, apparently ignoring the evidence of the blood test, convicted the defendant, and the court below refused a new trial. After sentence was imposed upon the defendant, he appealed to this Court.

Prior to the Act of June 15, 1951, P. L. 585, 19 PS §871, Pennsylvania courts granted new trials in cases where the Commonwealth’s evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction, and where the verdict was against the weight of all the evidence. Commonwealth v. Nathan, 93 Pa. Superior Ct. 193, 197 (1928). Since [511]*511the passage of this act the courts may arrest the judgment of sentence on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence, but the sufficiency must be tested according to the Commonwealth’s evidence. Commonwealth v. Wright, 383 Pa. 532, 536, 119 A. 2d 492 (1956); Commonwealth v. Brown, 184 Pa. Superior Ct. 494, 498, 136 A. 2d 138 (1957).

The court may not arrest judgment where there is evidence to sustain the conviction, but it may grant a new trial where the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. 11 P.L.E. Criminal Law, §609; Commonwealth v. Jenkins, 185 Pa. Superior Ct. 577, 138 A. 2d 203 (1958); Hess v. Stiner, 144 Pa. Superior Ct. 249, 250, 19 A. 2d 560 (1941); Commonwealth v. Jones, 303 Pa. 551, 154 A. 480 (1931); Commonwealth v. Smith, 3 Pa. D. & C. 2d 228 (1955).

In the case now before us, Dr. William Kuhns, a noted pathologist of Pittsburgh testified that he made two separate tests of the blood of the mother, the child and the defendant, that the defendant was in blood group “O”, the mother was in blood group “A”, and the child was in blood group “B”, and that this excluded the defendant as a possible father of the child. It is acknowledged by medical and legal authorities alike that under these blood groupings it would be biologically impossible for the defendant to be the father of the child. See I Wigmore on Evidence, 3rd Edition, page 619, table 4, line 2, §165b.

The integrity and professional ability of the medical witness was not questioned, nor is there anything in the evidence to indicate any possibility of error in the laboratory testing.

The courts, which are responsible for administering justice, should not permit a jury to capriciously disregard indisputable evidence, and to convict a defendant when such result would be clearly against the weight [512]*512of the evidence. As stated in Commonwealth v. Corrie, 302 Pa. 431, 437, 153 A. 743 (1931) and repeated in Commonwealth v. Balles, 160 Pa. Superior Ct. 148, 150, 50 A. 2d 729 (1947) “Law must be the servant of justice, and courts of justice will not be blind to any breach of basic rights or impotent to vindicate them.”

Whether a new trial is to be granted because the verdict is against the weight of the evidence is generally a matter for the trial court. Commonwealth v. Attarian, 129 Pa. Superior Ct. 31, 34, 194 A. 776 (1937), One of the reasons for this rule is that the trial judge has an opportunity to form first hand impressions of the credibility of the witnesses, and most cases tried before juries turn upon credibility. Cases such as this, however, turn upon the weight to be given to the results of blood tests, a scientific matter which a trial judge is in no better position to consider than an appellate judge. The trial judge has superior position to pass upon the integrity and ability of the medical experts who make the blood tests, but the weight to be given to the biological conclusions drawn from these tests is a matter which a trial court judge and an appellate judge are equally able to pass upon.

Blood tests are used as an aid to determine paternity in an ever-increasing number of jurisdictions. Pennsylvania should be proud that the first of the many thousands of reported cases in America on this subject (according to 163 A.L.R. 940) is Commonwealth v. Zammarelli, 17 Pa. D. & C. 229 (1931), in which the late Judge Morrow, of Fayette County, granted the defendant a new trial in á bastardy case because the uncontradicted evidence of a medical expert called by the defendant was that blood tests showed the defendant could not have been the father of the child. See also Commonwealth ex rel. v. Visocki, 23 Pa. D. & C. 103 (Allegheny County 1935).

[513]*513Following two decisions of this Court that a prosecutrix could not be required to submit to a blood test in the absence of legislation requiring her to do so,1 the Act of May 24, 1951, P. L. 402, 28 PS §306, was enacted.

It provides: “In any proceeding to establish paternity, the court, on motion of the defendant, shall order the mother, her child and the defendant to submit to one or more blood grouping tests by a duly qualified physician to determine whether or not the defendant can be excluded as being the father of the child, and the results of such tests may be received in evidence but only in cases where definite exclusion of the defendant is established.”

Other states have similar statutes which provide only that the results of the blood tests may be received in evidence. The courts of some of these states have said that the tests are conclusive where the accuracy of the testing procedure is shown, or not questioned. Jordan v. Mace, 144 Me. 351, 69 A. 2d 670 (1949); Commissioner of Welfare ex rel. Tyler v. Costonie, 277 App. Div. 90, 97 N.Y.S. 2d 804 (1950); Clark v. Rysedorph, 281 App. Div. 121, 118 N.Y.S. 2d 103 (1952).

In Pennsylvania we have not gone that far. In Commonwealth v. Wright, 178 Pa. Superior Ct. 181, 113 A. 2d 724 (1955), a bastardy ease in which the blood grouping test excluded the defendant as the father, this Court, with six judges sitting, was equally divided between affirming the new trial granted by the court below, and reversing the court below for refusing the motion in arrest of judgment. After allowing an allocatur, the Supreme Court quashed the appeal upon the ground that it was taken prior to sentence. In its [514]*514opinion, however, the Supreme Court noted that “the sufficiency of the evidence must be tested according to the Commonwealth’s evidence. This amply sustained the charge and the court was without power to discharge the defendant.” Commonwealth v. Wright, 383 Pa. 532, 536, 119 A. 2d 492 (1956).

In Commonwealth v. Kunscik, 182 Pa. Superior Ct. 639, 128 A. 2d 169 (1956), where a blood grouping test excluded the defendant, we granted a new trial (with one judge favoring the arrest of judgment). In Commonwealth v. Davis, 183 Pa. Superior Ct. 257, 130 A. 2d 217 (1957), we reversed the court below and granted a new trial in a bastardy case where the defendant was advised after trial that an error was made in evaluating the blood test and that instead of showing that he could be the father, it actually excluded him as the father.

There is no need to trace in detail the rapidly growing acceptance of blood grouping tests in American jurisdictions which followed the opinion by the pioneering Pennsylvania jurist in Commonwealth v. Zammarelli, supra, 17 Pa. D. & C. 229 (1931).2

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Bluebook (online)
154 A.2d 412, 190 Pa. Super. 509, 1959 Pa. Super. LEXIS 678, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-coyle-pasuperct-1959.