Opinion

Commonwealth v. Reeves

  • 255 Pa. Super. 409
  • 387 A.2d 877
  • 1978 Pa. Super. LEXIS 3014
Court
Superior Court of Pennsylvania
Filed
Apr 28, 1978
Status
Published
Author
Spaeth
On the bench
Watkins, Jacobs, Hoffman, Cercone, Price, Van Voort Spaeth, Spaeth
Cited by
7 cases
Authority
More cited than 9.7%

The opinion

*432 SPAETH, Judge,

concurring:

I concur in the result reached by Judge CERCONE but would award appellants a new trial for the following different reasons.

The district attorney’s remarks during his closing argument exceeded the bounds of professional propriety and were prejudicial to appellants. Contra, Dissenting Opinion at 461-470. This is true especially in regard to the district attorney’s characterization of appellants as a “mob” and as “criminals [to be brought] to justice.” Id. at 463. Further the district attorney drew an impermissible inference from the evidence that the individuals capable of participating in the destruction of property at the construction site were also capable of injuring someone’s person, and that therefore the refusal to divulge the identity of an informant were justified. Id. at 464-465.

The award of a new trial is also required because appellants were denied a fair trial by the prosecutor’s failure to disclose that Marino had testified mistakenly at the hearing on the defense motion for the disclosure of the names and whereabouts of all witnesses known to the prosecution, and that in fact, as he subsequently realized, Marino knew the identity of his informant. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 , 83 S.Ct. 1194 , 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). This informant was a civilian eyewitness to the incident and might have provided evidence material to appellants’ defense. Commonwealth v. Carter, 427 Pa. 53 , 233 A.2d 284 (1967). Since Marino informed the prosecutor that he had testified mistakenly at the hearing at least a month and a half before trial commenced, the prosecutor had ample opportunity to inform the court of the error.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

A word about cookies

We need a few to keep you signed in and the library working. The rest help us see which pages people use and where they get stuck. They stay off unless you say yes.