Commonwealth v. Jackson

OPINION OF THE COURT

EAGEN, Justice.

Appellant, Ruth Jackson, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter following a non jury trial. Motions in arrest of judgment and/or a new trial were denied and a term of psychiatric probation was imposed. This appeal followed.

Throughout, Jackson has argued that this homicide was justifiable since she acted to prevent the infliction of great bodily harm on her niece, Anita Peake. The trial court rejected this position stating an aunt-niece relationship is not sufficiently close kinship to jus-, tify one intervening to defend the other. While the trial court…