Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

145 Pa. 413

Commonwealth v. McMahon

Venango County Court of Oyer and Terminer · decided 1891-11-09

No. 281 October Term 1891, Sup. Ct.; court below, No. — August Term 1891, Q. S. On August 24, 1891, the grand jury returned as a true bill an indictment charging Thomas McMahon, Michael McMahon and Charles Miller, in one count with burglary, and in another, with aggravated assault and battery, on the information of JT. L. Anderson. The indictment being certified into the Court of Oyer and Terminer, the prisoner Thomas McMahon was duly arraigned, and pleaded not guilty. Issue.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1891-11-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently April 1954

18 state decisions

601891190019101920193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per. Curiam:

¶1.We find no error in the first and second specifications. The flight of a person charged with crime immediately after the commission of an offence, is a circumstance which the jury may always take into consideration; and if the defence of an alibi is false, or, in the language of the court below, “ manufactured, it should go for nothing, and have some weight against the defendant.”

¶2The answer of the learned judge to the defendant’s fourth point is not as direct as it might have been. It might well have been refused, however, for the reason that it was not based upon the full evidence. It related to the question of *418identification, and assumed that the only opportunities for such identification occurred in a dark night, with only an occasional gleam of a dark lantern; whereas there was testimony that, before the curtains were pulled down, the moon shone in the room, and the witness could see. without trouble. Besides, some of the witnesses had known the defendant for years, and they heard his voice.

¶3The fourth specification is not sustained. It appeared by the evidence of the appellant himself that he had stolen a ride .upon the night express, which circumstance fully justified the answer of the court to the defendant’s eighth point. We find no error in this record.

¶4Judgment affirmed.

/145/pa/413 · .json · Public domain