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87 Pa. 299

Kramer v. Commonwealth

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided June 17, 1878

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1878-06-17

<p>On the trial of an indictment for arson, evidence of a subsequent distinct criminal act, hut connected in character and purpose with the offence charged, is admissible. ■ '</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-06-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently May 1952

14 state decisions

50187818801890190019101920193019401950decided

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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¶1.The judgment of -the Supreme Court was entered

Pur .Curiam.

¶2—

¶3WeMiscover no error in this-case.. The assign--men't most relied on,, the third, is not sustained. The offer ivas not *to prove an independent offence on the trial of a óase having no connection with it, as in Shaffner v. 'Commonwealth, 20 P. F. .Smith • 60,.but it'ay as to prove acts immediately after the first attempt 'to burn the hotel, which tended to show a guilty purpose in Kramer’s mind, such as Avould mak.e it quite probable that he was the same' person Avho had made the former attempt. It was a circumstance in the chain of proof. . The fact that it indicated an attempt to fire the building again did not wéaken the proof of purpose, because if accomplished, it Avould be a distinct offence. . The'purpose of the first attempt failed because of the extinguishment of the fire, and though it had burned sufficiently to constitute the offence of arson as a complete crime, yet the purpose Avas not complete, for that Avas to consume the building entirely. Being saved, it was clearly the subject of a réneAved purpose, and the evidence of this reneAved purpose tended strongly to show that the person Avas the same who made both attempts,-.. The language of the opinion in Shaffner v. CommonAvealth, is directly in favor of this view. It is there said: “to make one criminal act evidence of another, a connection between them must have existed in the mind of the actor, linking them together for some'.purpose hé intended to accomplish ; or it must be necessary to identify the person of the actor, by a connection which shows that, he who committed the one must have done the other.”

¶4Sentence affirmed -and the record remitted for execution.

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