{"id":655,"date":"2012-04-17T15:51:37","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T19:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/?p=655"},"modified":"2012-04-19T14:29:21","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:29:21","slug":"commonwealth-v-mochan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/commonwealth-v-mochan\/","title":{"rendered":"Commonwealth v. Mochan, 177 Pa. Super. 454 (1955)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Case Name:<\/strong> Commonwealth v. Mochan
\nCitation: <\/strong>177 Pa. Super. 454 (1955)<\/p>\n

Facts: <\/strong>Mochan was indicted for making numerous harassing phone calls to a woman. He was convicted of a misdemeanor under common law because his act was not a criminal offense under any Pennsylvania statute.<\/p>\n

Issue: <\/strong>Whether the court can convict a defendant under common law when his actions did not constitute a criminal offense under state statute.<\/p>\n

Defendant\u2019s argument: <\/strong>nulla poena sine lege<\/em> \u2013 no punishment without law. The defendant argues that he cannot be convicted of an action that is not illegal.<\/p>\n

State\u2019s argument: <\/strong>The state\u2019s common law is sufficiently broad to allow a court to act and declares that \u201cwhatever openly outrages decency and is injurious to public morals is a misdemeanor at common law.\u201d The defendant\u2019s actions fit this criterion; therefore, the court can charge and convict him of a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

Court\u2019s reasoning: <\/strong>The question is whether the alleged crimes could have been prosecuted and punished under common law. Because the controlling principles are broad, \u201c[a]ny act is indictable at common law which from its nature scandalously affects the morals or health of the community\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Holding: <\/strong>The charges correctly identified the offense as a common law misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

Dissent: <\/strong>This allows the courts to supersede the legislature\u2019s power. Although common law is part of the state\u2019s law, our country has had 200 years of the legislative branch determining which actions require punishment. This is a slippery slope as \u201cthere is nothing to prevent our invasion of the legislative field except our own self restraint.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Case Name: Commonwealth v. Mochan Citation: 177 Pa. Super. 454 (1955) Facts: Mochan was indicted for making numerous harassing phone calls to a woman. He was convicted of a misdemeanor under common law because his act was not a criminal offense under any Pennsylvania statute. Issue: Whether the court can convict a defendant under common … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Commonwealth v. Mochan, 177 Pa. Super. 454 (1955)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[146,145],"tags":[36,149,155],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","yoast_head":"\nCommonwealth v. Mochan, 177 Pa. Super. 454 (1955) -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mochan was indicted for making numerous harassing phone calls to a woman. He was convicted of a misdemeanor under common law because his act was not a criminal offense under any Pennsylvania statute.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/commonwealth-v-mochan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Commonwealth v. Mochan, 177 Pa. Super. 454 (1955) -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mochan was indicted for making numerous harassing phone calls to a woman. He was convicted of a misdemeanor under common law because his act was not a criminal offense under any Pennsylvania statute.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/commonwealth-v-mochan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MiB Law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-17T19:51:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-04-19T18:29:21+00:00\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/\",\"name\":\"MiB Law\",\"description\":\"Lawschool Notes and Outlines\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/commonwealth-v-mochan\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/commonwealth-v-mochan\/\",\"name\":\"Commonwealth v. Mochan, 177 Pa. Super. 454 (1955) -\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-17T19:51:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-04-19T18:29:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#\/schema\/person\/14950d73730da8ecbd5b2d2690155373\"},\"description\":\"Mochan was indicted for making numerous harassing phone calls to a woman. He was convicted of a misdemeanor under common law because his act was not a criminal offense under any Pennsylvania statute.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/commonwealth-v-mochan\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#\/schema\/person\/14950d73730da8ecbd5b2d2690155373\",\"name\":\"Andrew\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/1.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7e4456f2e886e2b22adb13ba439e70ed?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Andrew\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/miblaw\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}