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204 Pa. 218

Commonwealth v. Kilpatrick

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided November 11, 1902

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1902-11-11

Appeal, No. 280, Jan. T., 1902, by defendant, from judgment of O. & T., Del. Co., March T., 1902, on verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree in case of Commonwealth v. Robert Kilpatrick. Indictment for murder. The opinion of the Supreme Court states the case. Verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree. Errors assigned were: 1. Under all the evidence the defendant should have been acquitted on the ground of insanity. 2.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1902-11-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently April 1966

3 state decisions

101902191019201930194019501960decided

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.

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Pee Curiam,

¶1The undisputed facts of the killing, the procuring of a deadly weapon, the threats to let the victim’s “ blood out on the street ” and finally the firing of the pistol at a vital part, furnish all the elements of murder of the first degree, in regard to which this court is charged by the Act of February 15,1870, P. L. 15, to review the evidence. The effect of the evidence was for the jury, not for the court.

¶2The onfy defense was insanity and that also was for the jury. The burden of proof was upon the prisoner, and there was no error in so charging. The judge’s language that the jury must be “ satisfied that the defendant was insane when he committed the act ” tended to call the attention of the jury to the distinction between the degree of proof required of the prisoner on that subject and the requirement of the commonwealth to satisfy the jury of the prisoner’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The expression was in aid of the prisoner’s case and could not have been reasonably understood in any other sense.

¶3Judgment affirmed and record remitted to the court below for execution according to law.

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