Commonwealth v. Newman

OPINION

ZAPPALA, Justice.

At issue in this appeal is the applicability of Act 16 of 1989, which rewrote the statutory provision dealing with spouses as witnesses against each other, 42 Pa.C.S. § 5913 (Supp.1993), and the interplay between that section and the provision dealing with confidential communications between spouses, 42 Pa.C.S. § 5914 (Supp.1993).

Mary Newman, the Appellant, was subpoenaed to testify at a coroner’s inquest/preliminary hearing on November 14,1989, concerning a charge of homicide against her husband, Kenneth Newman, arising out of the death of Raymond Little in March of…