COMMONWEALTH v. KAUFFMAN

Criminal Law — Embezzlement — Corporate officer — Weight of evidence — Rulings on evidence — Charge to jury — Comment on letters not offered in evidence — Emphasis on Commonwealth's case — Definition of crime — Failure to charge on quantum of proof to establish affirmative defense — Withholding funds under claim of right — Failure to swear official court interpreter.

1. On appeal by defendant, who was employed as sales manager by a company which conducted a home improvement business, following conviction on indictments charging him with embezzlement by a corporate officer, it was Held that the judgments of sentence should be affirmed.

2. Various contentions by the defendant that the verdict was against the weight of evidence, that the court below erred in sundry rulings on evidence, that the court in its charge erred in commenting on certain letters not offered in evidence, that the charge unduly emphasized the Commonwealth's case and minimized defendant's case, that the trial judge in the charge erred in defining embezzlement, that the charge placed an unduly great burden upon the defendant, and that it was error for the court below to fail to instruct the jury on the quantum of proof necessary to establish the affirmative defense that defendant withheld funds from his employer under a claim of right (which question was not raised in the court below), were Held, in the circumstances, to be without merit.

3. Defendant's objection that the record did not establish that the official court interpreter who interpreted for a witness was himself sworn was Held to be without merit, where it appeared that the interpreter in question was the chief official interpreter of the court, that he had been sworn as a court official under the appropriate statute, and that the witness was sworn, at which time no objection was made by defendant that the interpreter had not been sworn.

Argued September 20, 1960.