Commonwealth v. Cheatham

Opinion by

Mr. Justice O’Brien,

This is an appeal from the judgment of sentence of the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Philadelphia County. Appellant, Francis W. Cheatham, was convicted, after trial by jury, of murder in the second degree. After motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were denied, he was sentenced to a five to twenty year term.

The decedent, one Bernard Kennedy, was stabbed to death in a bar early on the morning of July 8, 1965. According to one John C. Scott, the Commonwealth’s principal witness, four people, including the decedent, were drinking together in a bar. The…