Commonwealth v. Walker

288 A.2d 741, 447 Pa. 146, 1972 Pa. LEXIS 515

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: March 21, 1972
• Docket: Appeal, 294
• Status: Published

Opinions

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Roberts,

Appellant, James Walker, was convicted of second degree murder after a non-jury trial and sentenced to five to fifteen years imprisonment.

* After the denial of post-trial motions, this appeal was filed raising two contentions: (1) appellant established by a preponderance of the evidence that he acted in self-defense and was entitled to acquittal; (2) appellant’s guilt could rise no higher than voluntary manslaughter. We find no merit in either claim and affirm the judgment of sentence.

The record establishes that: Appellant, the decedent Morris Lucas, Mrs. Marshall, and her nephew John Pugh resided together in Philadelphia. On the night before Thanksgiving in 1969, Mrs. Marshall heard loud shouting at 12:30 a.m. She came downstairs to the kitchen to find Lucas and appellant in argument. The two men began to fight until pulled apart by John Pugh. Lucas then told Mrs. Marshall he was going to get his clothes and leave. He then stepped out onto the rear porch.

Shortly thereafter, Lucas re-entered the kitchen armed with a knife and demanded that appellant drop his knife which was then in his pocket. After appellant responded and his knife fell to the floor, Lucas grabbed him and stabbed him in the side. The wound began to bleed but was not serious. Appellant then went upstairs.

On the third floor, appellant secured John Pugh’s gun hidden in a drawer. As he walked downstairs, he took care to conceal the gun from John Pugh who was standing on the second floor.

Appellant returned to the kitchen with the gun to find Lucas standing and drinking a glass of water. Appellant immediately fired two random shots and then ordered Lucas to turn around and talk to him. Lucas turned exposing a knife in his hand. Appellant then fired several shots striking Lucas fatally in the chest.

To establish self-defense, it is necessary to show: “ (1) The slayer must have been free from fault in provoking or continuing the difficulty which resulted in the killing ... (2) The slayer must have reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of death, great bodily harm, or some felony, and that there was a necessity to kill in order to save himself therefrom . . . (3) The slayer must not have violated any duty to retreat or avoid the danger. . . .” Commonwealth v. Roundtree, 440 Pa. 199, 204, 269 A. 2d 709, 712 (1970); Commonwealth v. Johnston, 438 Pa. 485, 489, 263 A. 2d 376, 379 (1970).

Appellant may well have been free of blame for starting the fight originally. The record establishes that Lucas was the initial aggressor. Appellant, however, significantly contributed to the continuation of the controversy and all but monopolized its conclusion. After the stabbing, Lucas momentarily left the house only to return to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Appellant, while wounded, walked up two flights of stairs to John Pugh’s room and secured a gun and returned to the first floor ten minutes later. He purposefully concealed the gun as he returned to the first floor. Appellant then verbally confronted Lucas and started shooting. Even accepting appellant’s testimony, apparently disbelieved by the trial court, that Lucas started moving toward appellant threatening him with a knife, appellant had acted so forcefully to continue the conflict that he was properly barred on that ground alone from claiming self-defense.

Appellant’s counsel additionally maintains that Lucas relinquished his status as a resident of the household after stabbing appellant and therefore became an intruder from whom appellant as a resident in his own house had no duty to retreat. This claim indulges in fiction regarding this record. There is no doubt that both Lucas and appellant were permanent residents of the house and that status remained unchanged up to the time of the shooting. It is well established that a “man . . . dangerously assaulted or feloniously attacked in his own dwelling house .. . need not retreat, but may stand his ground” only if the attacker is “not a member of the household. . . .” Commonwealth v. Johnston, 438 Pa. 485, 490, 263 A. 2d 376, 380 (1970); Commonwealth v. Lawrence, 428 Pa. 188, 192, 236 A. 2d 768, 771 (1968); Commonwealth v. Wilkes, 414 Pa. 246, 249, 199 A. 2d 411, 412, cert. denied, 379 U.S. 939, 85 S. Ct. 344 (1964). Because both men were residents of the house, both had a duty to retreat and cease the fight.

Appellant’s counsel also claims the Commonwealth only proved appellant guilty of voluntary manslaughter: “ ‘To reduce an intentional blow, stroke or wounding resulting in death, to voluntary manslaughter, there must be sufficient cause of provocation and a state of rage or passion, without time to cool, placing the prisoner beyond the control of his reason, and suddenly impelling him to the deed. If any of these be wanting— if there be provocation without passion, or passion without a sufficient cause of provocation, or there be time to cool, and reason has resumed its sway, the killing will be murder. . . .’” Commonwealth v. Barnosky, 436 Pa. 59, 64, 258 A. 2d 512, 515 (1969). The record clearly indicates that there was plenty of “time to cool” any passions excited by Lucas’ attack. More than ten minutes elapsed as appellant went to the third floor to obtain Pugh’s gun. Appellant showed a cool mind in concealing the gun from Pugh as he passed Pugh on the second floor. Appellant could not have been under the sway and control of passion when he returned to the first floor and began shooting. The trial court’s findings are fully supported by the record.

The judgment of sentence is affirmed.

Mr. Justice Nix concurs in the result.

While this appeal was pending in this Court, appellant, James Walker, died. Appellant’s counsel then filed a petition requesting that the appeal be dismissed and the trial and conviction be abated ab initio. The Commonwealth filed an answer opposing the request for abating the proceedings ab initio and seeking a dismissal of the appeal. Both motions were held in abeyance by our per curiam order dated November 11, 1971 (Mr. Justice Pomeroy dissenting), and the appeal was heard on the merits. We today reject both motions, believing instead that it is in the interest of both a defendant’s estate and society that any challenge initiated by a defendant to the regularity or constitutionality of a criminal proceeding be fully reviewed and decided by the appellate process.