Hope v. Commonwealth

Benton, J.,

with whom Koontz, C.J., Barrow, J., and Keenan, J., join, dissenting.

The Commonwealth established sufficient facts and circumstances which, if believed by the jury, might have supported the burglary and larceny convictions. However, for no legitimate reason apparent on this record, the Commonwealth offered and was allowed to place before the jury a gun that had no proven relationship to those offenses. The gun was found in woods near the place where Mayfield B. Hope fell while fleeing from a police officer *388nearly twenty-four hours after the burglary. Hope’s companion had just sold…