It is a general principle of criminal jurisprudence that “incomplete crimes,” as they are called, such as attempt, and conspiracy to commit a crime, should not be punished as severely as the full, completed crime. It was on this principle that at common law an attempt to commit even the gravest felony, such as murder, was only a misdemeanor. Other codes maintain this principle. * * *
The Pennsylvania code has no general section on attempts, but in a haphazard manner, in providing for some crimes, provides for the attempt to commit the same, and in some cases has no provision for such attempts. A study of those cases in which provision for punishing the attempt is made, shows an entire absence of any theory or principle in assessing the punishment. Thus the penalty for the attempt to commit arson is the same as for the crime of arson itself; for the attempt to commit robbery, the same as for the completed robbery; but the attempt to commit murder is not punished with the same penalty as murder, viz.: death, or twenty years’ imprisonment, but by seven years’ imprisonment only.
Instances of Lack of Co-ordination in Drafting.
Two strikers separately determine to wreck a passenger train: one removes a rail from the road over which a train is scheduled to pass; another cuts the telegraph wire to prevent the train dispatcher from stopping the train from running into a wreck. The first striker would come within the terms of Section 7 of the Act of 1911 and could be sentenced to pay a fine of $10,000 and suffer imprisonment for ten years; the second man would come within the terms of Section 147 of the Act of 1860 and could not be fined more than $500 or imprisoned more than twelve months. * * *
If the executor made way with a horse belonging to the estate, his maximum imprisonment would be still two years; but if the butler made way with another horse he might receive ten years as a penalty. If a mule would serve the butler’s purpose as well as a horse he had better take the mule, for then he could not be sentenced for more than three years; if the mule were not swift enough, however, he might choose an automobile, for the maximum imprisonment for stealing an automobile is the same as that for larceny of the mule, being less than one-third of that for larceny of a horse.
If the driver of a public “coachee” by “wanton and furious driving or racing” unintentionally breaks a chicken’s leg he may be punished by five years’ imprisonment, the same punishment provided for attempted rape, for mayhem, for counterfeiting, and for robbery; but if the driver of a taxicab is guilty of the same assault on a member of the feathered tribe he is not even indictable. If the driver of this “coachee,” while so driving, should accidentally inflict the slightest personal injury on another, he would be liable to greater punishment than if he deliberately stabbed that other with intent to maim him, or wilfully and maliciously exploded dynamite under him, thus doing him serious bodily harm. This violates one of the cardinal principles of criminal jurisprudence, viz., that crimes of negligence are not so grave as crimes done with deliberate intent, a principle recognized in other parts of the code in providing for murder and involuntary manslaughter. * * *
The writer has attempted to point out in this paper some of the more glaring and interesting defects in the code. He has by no means exhausted them. There is a great need for a complete revision of the code. It is a jumble of inconsistent theories; a great many sections are badly drawn, others are obsolete; many are inconsistent, many are in conflict; there is much overlapping due to different acts having been passed at different times covering in part the same subject matter, so that it cannot be told whether a given crime should be punished under one section or another prescribing a different punishment.
Governor Brumbaugh has appointed the following on the Commission to revise the Criminal Code of the Commonwealth: Edwin M. Abbott, Chairman, Philadelphia; Wm. E. Mikell, Secretary, Philadelphia; George C. Bradshaw, Pittsburgh; Clarence E. Coughlin, Wilkes-Barre; Rex N. Mitchell, Punxsutawney.