# Commonwealth v. Reilly

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · October 17, 1988 · 519 Pa. 550

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9746785

## Case

- **Full name:** COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Bernadette REILLY, Appellant
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** October 17, 1988
- **Citations:** 519 Pa. 550; 549 A.2d 503; 1988 Pa. LEXIS 258
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by McDERMOTT
- **Judges:** Nix, Larsen, Flaherty, McDermott, Zappala
- **Cited by:** 31 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9746785

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting, in dicta, that the foundation of a prior Supreme Court case involving the burden of proof for an insanity defense is “purely evidentiary”
- noting that the burden is on the defendant because otherwise sanity would become an implied element of the offense

## Opinion text

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the majority opinion insofar as as I understand the ruling to be that it is NOT the duty of the Commonwealth to prove as an essential element of a crime that the accused was sane when the act was done. If one says they were insane it is their burden to offer evidence to satisfy that contention before the triers of fact.
Nor should definitions of insanity beyond the statute, 1 however ingenious or supported by the most bizarre conduct, ever be grounds to shift that burden. The credibility of the proponent of a fact, however learned or experienced, remains the central issue on who is sane or otherwise. The triers of fact remain the final arbiters under the presumption that all are sane, until who says otherwise is believed. We have familiar experience that sane men can inflict injury equal in enormity to the statutorily demented.
. 18 Pa.C.S. § 315.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9746785. Public record. Not legal advice.