Commonwealth v. Taranow

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Jones,

The appellant entered a plea of guilty to an indictment charging him with murder. The court en banc (composed of three judges), after hearing the evidence proffered by each side in relevant connection, adjudged the crime to be murder in the first degree, fixed the penalty at death and imposed sentence accordingly: Act of June 24, 1939, P. L. 872, Sec. 701, 18 PS § 4701. On this appeal, the defendant assigns for error solely the learned trial court’s action in fixing death rather than life imprisonment as the penalty.

Apart from the appellant’s admission of his…