McGinnis v. Commonwealth
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Error to the Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Jail Delivery for the county of Philadelphia: Of January Term 1882, No. 410. Indictment of John McGinnis, for the murder in the first degree of Mary Bead. Plea, not guilty. Verdict, guilty of murder in the first degree, in manner and form as indicted. Motion for new trial, on the ground of after-discovered evidence, refused, and the prisoner was sentenced to be hung.
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Error to the Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Jail Delivery for the county of Philadelphia: Of January Term 1882, No. 410. Indictment of John McGinnis, for the murder in the first degree of Mary Bead. Plea, not guilty. Verdict, guilty of murder in the first degree, in manner and form as indicted. Motion for new trial, on the ground of after-discovered evidence, refused, and the prisoner was sentenced to be hung. On the trial, before Yerkes, J., the prisoner admitted the killing, and that the facts warranted a verdict of murder of r,he second degree, but not of the first degree. The only…
1Opinion of the CourtChief Justice Mercur
The fourteen specifications of error assigned, were properly argued by the counsel of the plaintiff in error under three general heads. The first is that the evidence did not warrant a conviction of murder in the first degree.
Section 74 of the Act of 31st March 1860, inter alia, declares “ all murder which shall bo perpetrated by means of poison or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery or burglary, shall be deemed murder of the first degree.”
Th…
2Cited by6 opinions
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