Commonwealth v. Edwards

Opinion by

Me. Justice Musmanno,

Concueeing and Dissenting in Paet :

I concur in the decision of the Majority. I see no mitigating feature in the defendant’s case. His crime was dastardly, foul and wanton. He destroyed human life for his own ignoble and sordid gain. I object, however, to one statement in the Majority Opinion. In referring to the defendant’s application to this Court that we substitute life imprisonment for the death sentence imposed in the court below, the Majority says: “that, we are without lawful power to do.”

I do not agree that this Court is without that power. Even though this may not be the case for intervention of that character, I believe it is serious error to declare that in no case after a jury’s verdict may the Supreme *62 Court of Pennsylvania substitute life imprisonment for death. I fear that the constant repetition of this error will finally enthrone it as authority, not because of any inherent law, logic or justice in the utterance, but simply because of the numerousness with which it is proclaimed. In the case of Commonwealth v. Onda, 376 Pa. 405 , this Court stated that it had all the powers exercised by the Court of' King’s Bench in England and that under those practically unlimited powers “it protects the liberty of the subject, by speedy and summary interposition.” In a demonstration of that awesome power, this Court prohibited the Court of Quarter Sessions of Allegheny County from imposing sentence on a convicted Communist seditionist. *

Taking the pronouncement of this Court in the Onda case and other cases as binding precedents, it is difficult to understand how the Majority can say that it lacks power to transform a sentence of death into life imprisonment regardless of arguments advanced in behalf of such transformation. If this Court can and does reduce money verdicts in civil cases on the proposition that its conscience is shocked because of the size of the verdict, it is shocking to say that in the proper ease and where justice requires it (and this is not that case), it cannot save human life.

It is admitted that this Court has, or at least exercises, the power to change a death sentence into life imprisonment where the penalty has been fixed by *63 three judges. If, in the opinion of this Court, three learned, trained and experienced judges may err, why exclude the possibility that twelve laymen might err?

I believe that it is necessary that this expression of dissent be written, filed and printed so that the legal world may know that this Court is not of one mind when it says that it may not save the life of a convicted person when justice demands that it be done.

The tremendous power of this Court was exercised to the extent that although the convicted Communist seditionist in that case petitioned for only four months delay, almost a year has now passed since his petition and Onda still enjoys the asylum of the State of New York, to which he fled in order to avoid receiving the sentence he merited for the heinous crime of seeking to overthrow the government of the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.