Commonwealth v. Jefferson

Dissenting Opinion by

Mr. Justice Roberts:

Whether Jefferson’s admission be termed tacit or equivocal is completely irrelevant.1 The essence of the “tacit” admission rule was that an individual accused of crime will naturally deny the accusation and that a failure to deny this accusation would permit an inference of guilt. Any action short of a denial made the accusation admissible. Commonwealth v. Vallone, 347 Pa. 419, 421, 32 A. 2d 889, 890 (1943) leaves no doubt that this failure to deny was the basis for evidentiary use of a confederate’s inculpatory statement: “The rule of evidence is well…