Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
by
In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Daniel D. Chisebwe, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania considered whether the evidence was sufficient to support the summary convictions of Daniel Chisebwe for violating two provisions of the Motor Vehicle Code: 75 Pa.C.S. §1511 (Carrying and exhibiting driver’s license on demand) and 75 Pa.C.S. §1311 (Registration card to be signed and exhibited on demand). Chisebwe repeatedly refused to produce his driver’s license and registration card after being stopped for speeding and did so only about twenty-five minutes into the traffic stop, when the police were about to remove him from his car and take him to the police station.The Court held that the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions. The Court found that the phrase "upon demand" in the relevant statutory provisions required Chisebwe to produce his driver’s license and registration card immediately or nearly immediately when requested by a police officer. Chisebwe's delayed production of these documents, about twenty-five minutes into the traffic stop, was far from prompt and therefore did not satisfy the statutes.The Court also held that the safe-harbor provisions of the statutory provisions did not apply to Chisebwe. These provisions permit a driver to produce his license and registration card either at the office of the police officer or the office of the issuing authority, which did not happen in this case. Instead, Chisebwe produced the documents on the side of the road, which did not comport with the specific office-production requirements of the safe-harbor provisions. The Court affirmed the order of the Superior Court upholding Chisebwe’s judgment of sentence. View "Commonwealth v. Chisebwe" on Justia Law

by
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania considered whether a violation of a juvenile defendant's Fifth Amendment right is subject to appellate review for harmless error. The case involved Nazeer Taylor, who was charged with several serious felony offenses as a juvenile. The juvenile court transferred Taylor's case to adult criminal court, considering Taylor's refusal to admit guilt for his alleged offenses as a factor in its decision. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania previously held that such consideration violated Taylor's Fifth Amendment right. In this appeal, the Supreme Court concluded that the violation constituted a structural error, not subject to a harmless error review. Given Taylor's current age of 27, neither the juvenile nor the adult criminal court had the statutory authority to conduct a new certification hearing. Consequently, the Supreme Court affirmed the order of the Superior Court reversing Taylor's conviction and discharging him. View "Commonwealth v. Taylor" on Justia Law

by
In the case before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the appellant, Jeff Dobson, was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped by police in a high crime area due to a minor traffic violation. The driver of the vehicle had a suspended license and the other passenger had an active arrest warrant. Dobson had no outstanding warrants and did not exhibit any suspicious behavior. However, the police officer, Officer Duncan, conducted a pat-down search of Dobson solely on the basis of the high crime area designation. During the search, Officer Duncan found a firearm and subsequently arrested Dobson.Dobson was charged with carrying a concealed firearm without a license, persons not to possess firearms, possession of a controlled substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Prior to trial, he filed a suppression motion challenging the constitutionality of the pat-down and the subsequent seizure of the gun and drugs. The trial court denied Dobson's suppression motion. Dobson was subsequently convicted on all charges and sentenced to an aggregate of six to fifteen years in prison.On appeal, the Superior Court affirmed the denial of Dobson’s suppression motion. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, however, held that the officer's justification for the frisk, being the high crime area designation, was insufficient to support reasonable suspicion that Dobson was armed and dangerous. The fact that Dobson was a passenger in a vehicle that was lawfully stopped in a high crime area for a minor traffic violation did not, by itself, establish reasonable suspicion. The court held that the evidence found should have been suppressed and the convictions vacated. The case was remanded for a new trial without the unconstitutionally obtained evidence. View "Commonwealth v. Dobson" on Justia Law

by
Defendant-appellant Jessica Rizor petitioned for post conviction relief, arguing her trial counsel provided inadequate advice with regard to a plea offer. According to Rizor, her trial counsel’s inadequate advice led her to proceed to a trial - where her life sentence was all but assured - in lieu of accepting a plea offer that would have resulted in a five and a half to thirty-year sentence. The Superior Court agreed and reversed the PCRA court order denying relief and remanded “for a new trial or entry of a plea.” The Commonwealth petitioned for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review, arguing that the PCRA court correctly denied relief and that the Superior Court’s decision rested on a faulty foundation which assumed that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance rather than presuming the opposite. The Commonwealth further believed the Superior Court improperly ignored the PCRA court’s credibility determinations. After review, the Supreme Court agreed with the Commonwealth, finding that the Superior Court erred in reversing the PCRA court order denying relief where Rizor failed to establish a reasonable probability that but for counsel’s alleged deficient advice, she would have accepted the plea deal. The Superior Court's judgment was vacated and the case remanded to address Rizor's remaining challenges. View "Pennsylvania v. Rizor" on Justia Law

by
At approximately 5:30 p.m. on December 15, 2018, Alyssa Houston, Heather Lamb, and Lamb’s eight-year-old daughter exited Lamb’s house and departed in Lamb’s vehicle to go shopping. Houston noticed that Appellant Angelo Weeden was following directly behind Lamb’s vehicle in his Volkswagen Jetta, tailing them down a narrow street. When Lamb drove off of the main road to enter a residential area in the North Side neighborhood of the City of Pittsburgh (the “City”), Appellant pulled around the driver’s side of her vehicle and blocked its forward movement. Appellant then exited his vehicle and approached the passenger side of Lamb’s car, prompting Houston, who was sitting in the passenger-side front seat, to lock the car door. As Appellant aggressively attempted to pull the passenger-side front door open, Lamb’s daughter yelled “gun,” and Lamb quickly placed her car in reverse, backed around Appellant’s vehicle, and began to drive away. Simultaneously, the occupants of Lamb’s vehicle heard four gunshots, two of which struck Lamb’s vehicle on the rear passenger side. Consequently, Lamb drove to the police station, and she and Houston reported the incident. The following day, Appellant was arrested, and the Commonwealth charged him with one count each of aggravated assault, person not to possess a firearm, carrying a firearm without a license, and propulsion of missiles into an occupied vehicle, and three counts of recklessly endangering another person. At trial, a veteran detective testified about the police department’s use of a gunfire detection program, “ShotSpotter.” The issue this case presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s review was whether a printed summary created by a computerized system, “ShotSpotter,” which contemporaneously collected data regarding potential gunshots and transmitted the same to the subscribing police force, fell within the purview of the Confrontation Clause when used as evidence in the course of a criminal prosecution. The Court concluded that, under the circumstances presented, the admission of the document did not run afoul of Appellant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause. Accordingly, his conviction was affirmed. View "Pennsylvania v. Weeden" on Justia Law

by
The Commonwealth appealed a Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) court’s grant of relief to Appellee Michael Conforti, vacating his convictions for murder of the first degree, kidnapping, rape, criminal conspiracy to commit murder, criminal conspiracy to commit rape and criminal conspiracy to commit kidnapping and his resulting death sentence. Conforti’s convictions and sentence stem from the 1990 kidnapping, rape, and murder of Kathleen Harbison. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the PCRA court’s determination that the Commonwealth committed a Brady violation by failing to disclose another accused perpetrator, James Bellman’s psychological reports. Bellman testified against Conforti at Conforti's trial. Relevant here, immediately prior to a November 2021 PCRA hearing, the Commonwealth provided Conforti’s counsel with two mental health reports relating to Bellman from 1980. The reports were created as part of a criminal case Bellman had in Wayne County in 1979. Bellman was then evaluated by two psychiatrists, both of whom prepared written reports diagnosing Bellman as a sociopath. The PCRA court found that the reports “remained in the possession of the Commonwealth and only surfaced” during the PCRA hearing on November 5, 2021. As such, according to the PCRA court, none of the evidence of Bellman’s mental health issues was disclosed to Conforti’s defense counsel during trial. The PCRA court found that the information contained in the reports would have been extremely damaging to Bellman’s credibility. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the PCRA court's determination the Commonwealth committed a Brady violation by failing to disclose Bellman's psychological reports: "because of the importance of Bellman’s testimony, if those reports were properly disclosed there is a reasonable probability the result of Conforti’s trial would have been different, as it could have led the jury to discredit Bellman’s testimony and given more credit to Conforti’s testimony that he was not involved in Ms. Harbison’s murder. Conforti was prejudiced by the Commonwealth’s nondisclosure." View "Pennsylvania v. Conforti" on Justia Law

by
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted appeal in this matter to consider whether the Superior Court erred in holding that a trial court lacked jurisdiction to correct a patent and obvious error in a sentencing order when the defendant’s request for correction was filed outside the time limitations of the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”). In November 1994, Appellant Rodney McGee fatally assaulted Barry Williams. In 1996, Appellant entered into a negotiated guilty plea multiple accounts for acts against multiple people; court stated that Appellant’s aggregate sentence for all of the offenses was 32 1⁄2 to 65 years. On the same day that Appellant entered his plea and the trial court orally imposed the above sentence, the trial court issued a three-page typed document titled “Order” (“typed sentencing order”) that was inconsistent with what the court orally imposed on the record. Decades later, on June 3, 2020, Appellant filed a pro se PCRA petition, and counsel was appointed. On August 5, 2020, Appellant filed a “Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence” arguing that there was an obvious incompatibility between the two orders. Finding that the orders in question were “patently erroneous” and “contrary to common sense,” the trial court concluded that amendment of the orders was proper, as the time limits of the PCRA did not apply. The Commonwealth appealed the trial court’s decision to the Superior Court, asserting that the trial court did not have jurisdiction to entertain Appellant’s Motion because the underlying claim was cognizable under the PCRA, and had been filed outside the PCRA’s jurisdictional time constraints. In a unanimous memorandum opinion, the Superior Court reversed. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed, finding no "patent and obvious error" in the trial court's sentencing orders. The Court did not reach the question of whether a trial court’s inherent authority to correct patent and obvious errors in the record is subject to the time limitations of the PCRA. View "Pennsylvania v. McGee" on Justia Law

by
Appellant Kevin Jackson appealed a superior court judgment which vacated a pretrial order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (suppression court) and remanded the matter for further proceedings. The suppression court granted Jackson’s motion to suppress evidence recovered after a police officer detained Jackson via what was known as a Terry stop. While the suppression court concluded that the officer lacked the requisite reasonable suspicion to detain Jackson, the superior court reached the opposite conclusion. The superior court's judgment was affirmed by operation of law because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was evenly divided. The opinion in support of affirmance agreed with the superior court's conclusion that the police officer had reasonable suspicion to detain Jackson under the particular facts of this case. The opinion in support of reversal noted that it was "critical that courts and practitioners in this area of the law be cognizant of the burden that rests with the Commonwealth to justify a warrantless search or seizure when it seeks to do so based upon a 'high-crime area;' ... If we assume for the purpose of analysis that the Commonwealth established with empirical evidence that the area where Jackson was stopped constituted an area known for disproportionately regular gun violence, that evidence would not be relevant because it does not tend to make it more probable that Jackson was engaged in gun violence. Contrary to the Commonwealth’s argument, the Fourth Amendment requires the government to explain how reasonable suspicion relates to the individual’s conduct taking place in the location or area, for instance, by showing that his conduct was unique and, therefore, suspicious." View "Commonwealth v. Jackson, K., Aplt." on Justia Law

by
Appellant Jakeem Towles appealed the dismissal of his second petition for post conviction relief (PCRA). Towles was convicted for the 2010 homicide of Cornell Stewart, Jr. and the attempted homicide of John Wright following an altercation at a rap performance in Columbia, Pennsylvania. The Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County (PCRA court) concluded that Towles’ petition was untimely filed and, alternatively, without merit. Towles claimed that the Commonwealth had made threats and promises to a witness to induce him to testify against Towles at trial. In apparent recognition of the facial untimeliness of his second PCRA petition, Towles asserted that his petition met the so-called “governmental interference” and “newly discovered facts” timeliness exceptions in the Post Conviction Relief Act. Towles further claimed that he acted with due diligence in asserting his claim within the one-year time limit. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concurred with the PCRA court's finding that Towles' petition was untimely, and affirmed dismissal. View "Pennsylvania v. Towles" on Justia Law

by
In April 2018, Florencia Mainetto (Florencia) recorded cellphone videos of her daughter (G.R.) and her niece (C.P.), both minors at the time, accusing Appellant Jonathan Rivera (Rivera) of sexual abuse. After sharing these videos with Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Higdon, Florencia and her sister, Katherin Mainetto (Katherin - C.P.’s mother), brought G.R. and C.P. to the Children’s Advocacy Center of Towanda (Advocacy Center) for formal forensic interviews. Trooper Higdon observed these interviews through a window. A nurse at the Advocacy Center then examined G.R. and C.P. but did not find any physical evidence of abuse. Later, two more minors, S.C. and S.M., made similar allegations against Rivera. Combined, the victims alleged that Rivera abused them between the years of 2009 and 2018. On June 26, 2018, Trooper Higdon filed a criminal complaint and affidavit of probable cause against Rivera, alleging, inter alia, rape of a child. In this discretionary appeal before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the issue presented involved harmless error in the context of post-arrest silence. At trial, the prosecutor case asked the arresting officer a series of questions about the defendant’s post-arrest behavior, particularly whether the defendant denied the charges against him. Over a defense objection, the officer told the jury, four separate times, that the defendant, upon his arrest, stood mute and denied none of the charges. The Superior Court ruled that this testimony was admitted in error but, relying on authorities discussing pre-arrest silence, found it harmless. The Supreme Court reiterated that different harmless error standards apply when evaluating testimonial references to a defendant’s post-arrest versus pre-arrest silence. "Oriented correctly, we conclude that the testimony in this case was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, we must award the defendant a new trial." View "Pennsylvania v. Rivera" on Justia Law