Commonwealth v. Carr

WIEAND, Judge:

In this appeal from a sentence of life imprisonment imposed for murder of the first degree, the principal issue is whether the trial court erred when it disallowed evidence of the defendant’s psychosexual history to show the likelihood of a killing in the heat of passion aroused by defendant’s observation of two women engaged in homosexual lovemaking.

On May 13, 1988, Claudia Brenner and Rebecca Wight were hiking along the Appalachian Trail in Adams County, when they found an appropriate campsite and stopped for the night. There, they were resting and engaging in lesbian…