# Commonwealth v. Murphy

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · October 18, 1985 · 346 Pa. Super. 438

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9750527

## Case

- **Full name:** COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. David MURPHY, Appellant
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** October 18, 1985
- **Citations:** 346 Pa. Super. 438; 499 A.2d 1080; 1985 Pa. Super. LEXIS 9669
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Wieand
- **Judges:** Wieand, Cirillo, Johnson
- **Cited by:** 34 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/9750527

## Opinion text

WIEAND, Judge,
concurring:
I agree with Judge Johnson that the “motive” of the victim of a crime is not properly a basis for creating a new exception to the general rule that evidence of prior criminal conduct of a defendant is inadmissible. However, I do not understand that Judge Cirillo has attempted to create such an exception in his opinion. Therefore, I join Judge Cirillo’s opinion. Evidence that the victim was told that defendant had attempted to rape the victim’s wife was admissible because it was part of the history of the event on trial, a part of the natural development of the facts. That the victim had been told of the attempted rape of his wife was essential to the jury’s understanding of the circumstances surrounding his going to the defendant’s home and of his subsequent death. Even Judge Johnson, in his well-written dissent, finds it necessary, in order to draw a complete picture of the circumstances surrounding this shooting, to recite the reason why Joyce was at the defendant’s home at the time when he was shot. The trial court did not err in receiving this evidence to show the history of the event on trial.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9750527. Public record. Not legal advice.