Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

In this appeal, we review the trial court’s determination that 75 Pa.C.S. 1611(e) violated Pennsylvania’s constitutional right to due process and the federal and Pennsylvania constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment. In 2013, a Pennsylvania State Police informant asked Appellee Lawrence Shoul, who held a CDL, to retrieve marijuana from one of Appellee’s co-workers and deliver it to the informant. Appellee obliged, using a motor vehicle to do so, whereupon he was arrested and charged with two counts of felony manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, and ultimately convicted of the same. Thereafter, PennDOT notified Appellee that, pursuant to Section 1611(e), he was disqualified from holding a CDL for life. Appellee appealed his disqualification to the trial court, which found that Section 1611(e) violated Pennsylvania’s constitutional right to substantive due process and the federal and Pennsylvania constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment. Preliminarily, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that Section 1611(e) was not rationally related, at least as a matter of Pennsylvania constitutional jurisprudence, to the protection of highway safety. Furthermore, the Court found merit in the trial court’s view that Section 1611(e)’s severity, relative to Section 1611’s other sanctions for conduct plainly more dangerous to highway safety, undermined the notion that it was rationally related to that purpose. Furthermore, the Court agreed that Section 1611(e)’s imposition of a lifetime disqualification undermined its rational relationship to promoting highway safety. However, the Court agreed with PennDOT that the trial court overlooked the fact that Section 1611(e) served the legitimate governmental purpose of deterring drug activity. The Supreme Court: reversed the trial court’s order insofar as it held that Section 1611(e) violated the Pennsylvania constitutional right to substantive due process; vacated the trial court’s order insofar as it held that Section 1611(e) violated the federal and state constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment; and remanded this case back to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Shoul v. Bureau of Driver Licensing" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the petition for allowance of appeal filed by Daniel Loughnane to determine whether the Superior Court erred by holding that the federal automobile exception found in Commonwealth v. Gary, 91 A.3d 102 (Pa. 2014), permitted the seizure of Loughnane’s truck while it was parked in his residential driveway. In 2012, a large, dark-colored truck with a loud exhaust system was involved in a hit-and-run accident which killed nineteen-year-old Rebecca McCallick while she lay in the roadway on Hazle Street in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. This happened in front of the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, John Schenck, III, who observed the accident from their second story window. Schenck provided several statements to members of the Wilkes-Barre Police Department, describing the truck in question and identifying a vehicle in a photograph shown to him by police that he believed “looked like” the truck that struck his girlfriend. Schenck’s father came across a truck parked in a residential driveway on Liberty Street in Ashley, that he believed fit Schenck’s description. Schenck’s father took a photograph of the truck and showed it to Schenck, who identified it as the vehicle involved in the accident. That afternoon, police went to the address where Schenck’s father had observed the truck. The detective learned that Loughnane owned the residence and the truck parked in the driveway. Unable to reach Loughnane at home, the detective went to various locations in an attempt to find him or to obtain contact information for him ‒ including Loughnane’s place of business, his neighbors’ homes, and the home of Loughnane’s parents ‒ all without success. During this time, the truck was left unattended. The Supreme Court concluded after a review of the facts of this case that "Gary" does not operate to permit the warrantless seizure of a vehicle parked on a defendant’s residential driveway. The Court therefore vacated the Superior Court's judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Pennsylvania v. Loughnane" on Justia Law

In 2002, David Chmiel was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of three elderly siblings. At Chmiel’s 2002 trial, the Commonwealth relied upon the testimony of a state police forensic examiner, who opined that hair found at the crime scene was microscopically similar to Chmiel’s hair. In 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) issued a press release admitting, for the first time, that testimony by FBI analysts regarding microscopic hair analysis in criminal trials was erroneous in the vast majority of cases. Furthermore, the FBI admitted that it had, over the course of twenty-five years, conducted multiple training courses for state and local forensic examiners throughout the country that incorporated some of the same flawed language that the FBI examiners had used in lab reports and trial testimony. Chmiel filed a petition pursuant to the PCRA, asserting that his conviction and death sentence rested upon unreliable microscopic hair comparison evidence. Recognizing that his petition facially was untimely, Chmiel asserted that the FBI press release constituted a newly discovered fact that satisfied the timeliness exception set forth in 42 Pa.C.S. 9545(b)(1)(ii). The PCRA court rejected Chmiel’s reliance upon the FBI press release as a newly discovered fact, and dismissed the petition as untimely. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found two newly discovered facts upon which Chmiel’s underlying claim is predicated, both of which were made public for the first time in a Washington Post article and the FBI press release. With these newly discovered, material facts, the FBI press release indicated that a testifying expert's trial testimony may have exceeded the limits of science and overstated to the jury the significance of the microscopic hair analysis. The Court concluded the FBI’s repudiation and disclosure about its role in training state and local forensic examiners satisfied Section 9545(b)(1)(ii), and entitled Chmiel to a merits determination of his underlying claim. View "Pennsylvania v. Chmiel" on Justia Law

In 2011, when she was sixteen years old, the victim, C.S., reported that she had been raped and otherwise sexually abused repeatedly by her stepfather, Appellee Kenneth Maconeghy, Jr. C.S. related that the assaults had occurred in the home that she shared with her mother, Appellee, and several siblings, during the summer months of 2005, when she was eleven years old. Appellee was arrested and charged with various sexual crimes, including rape by forcible compulsion and rape of a child. The question presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s review concerned whether, in a criminal prosecution, a sexual abuse evaluator may testify to his opinion that a child was sexually assaulted, where there was no physical evidence of abuse, and the opinion was premised upon the expert’s apparent acceptance of the child’s reporting and description. The Supreme Court agreed with the Superior Court, as well as the wide body of decisions from other jurisdictions, that expert testimony opining that a child has been sexually abused (which is predicated on witness accounts and not physical findings) is inadmissible. The Court’s decision was limited according to the terms of this opinion, i.e., the Court did not presently assess whether, or under what circumstances, such evidence may be appropriate in light of physical findings or as fair response on redirect examination or in rebuttal. View "Pennsylvania v. Maconeghy" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was whether the Commonwealth Court erred when it vacated the decision of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole regarding the allocation of pre-sentence confinement credit to which appellee Derek Smith was entitled. While on parole for a crime committed in Pennsylvania, appellee committed another crime in North Carolina. Appellee filed two pro se administrative appeals, arguing, inter alia, the Board should have awarded him credit on his state sentence for all the time he was detained. After review, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined the Commonwealth Court erred, and therefore remanded for recalculation of appellee’s maximum release date. View "Smith v. PA Board of Probation & Parole" on Justia Law

In consolidated appeals, the issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s review centered on whether the invocation of the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Johnson v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2551 (2015), and Welch v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 1257 (2016), satisfied the newly-recognized constitutional right exception to the time limit prescribed by the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”). The Pennsylvania Court held that neither “Johnson” nor “Welch” created a constitutional right that applied retroactively to Mark Spotz. In 1995, Spotz embarked upon a three-day homicide spree through York, Schuylkill, Cumberland, and Clearfield Counties. Spotz killed four people, one of whom was his own brother. In 1996, Spotz was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in York, Schuylkill, and Cumberland Counties. In Clearfield County, Spotz was convicted of, inter alia, voluntary manslaughter for the killing of his brother, and received a lengthy prison sentence. The cases at issue here concerned Spotz’ death sentences in Cumberland and Schuylkill Counties. In each case, Spotz filed facially untimely petitions for collateral relief, in which he maintained that “Johnson” and “Welch” sufficed to satisfy the newly-recognized constitutional right exception. The Pennsylvania Court determined the timeliness exception did not apply, and affirmed the PCRA court’s conclusion that Spotz’ petitions were untimely, rendering Pennsylvania courts without jurisdiction to provide relief. View "Pennsylvania v. Spotz" on Justia Law

Timothy Jacoby was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of the 2010 first-degree murder of Monica Schmeyer, burglary, tampering with physical evidence, and robbery. Direct appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was automatic; the Court found no basis to vacate the penalty, and affirmed. View "Pennsylvania v. Jacoby" on Justia Law

Matthew Snyder was killed in an automobile collision caused by Danielle Packer, who inhaled (or “huffed”) difluoroethane (“DFE”) immediately before and while operating her vehicle. This case presented an issue involving the distinctions between ordinary recklessness and malice in the context of death or serious bodily injury caused by one driving under the influence of alcohol and/or a controlled substance. The Commonwealth charged Packer with a litany of offenses, including, inter alia, third-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, homicide by vehicle, homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence (“DUI”), and aggravated assault by vehicle while DUI. In separate conversations immediately following the accident, Packer told emergency medical personnel and a state trooper that the crash occurred while she was leaning down to adjust the radio. Packer also volunteered that she had used dust remover to clean her air vents. None of the individuals who spoke with Packer at the scene of the collision observed any signs of intoxication. While speaking with police, Packer complained of pain in her chest. Thereafter, she was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Packer consented to the request by police for a blood test at the hospital. The blood draw occurred at 12:47 a.m., three hours after the accident. Subsequent testing of her blood revealed DFE at a concentration of 0.28 micrograms per milliliter. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded the evidence presented at trial supported a finding that Packer acted with the requisite malice to support her convictions of third-degree murder and aggravated assault for the death and serious bodily injury she caused when she decided to drive a vehicle under the influence of DFE. View "Pennsylvania v. Packer" on Justia Law

In 2013, the Commonwealth charged appellant Markeith Aikens with unlawful contact with a minor and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse (IDSI), both graded as first-degree felonies, as well as corruption of minors, graded as a third-degree felony. This appeal presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s review an issue of proper grading for sentencing of a defendant’s conviction for unlawful contact with a minor when the grading was based on the offense for which the defendant contacted the minor (here, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse (IDSI)), but where the jury ultimately acquitted the defendant of that substantive offense. The Court found that because the trial court instructed the jury that if it concluded the purpose of contacting the minor was to engage in IDSI, appellant would be guilty of unlawful contact with a minor, and the jury convicted appellant of that crime, the court properly graded the crime as a first-degree felony. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s judgment. View "Pennsylvania v. Aikens" on Justia Law

In 2009, the Pennsylvania General Assembly codified the Recidivism Risk Reduction Incentive Act (the “RRRI Act” or the “Act”), intended to encourage eligible offenders to complete Department of Corrections programs that are designed to reduce recidivism. Eligibility was conditioned, in relevant part, upon the absence of a “history of present or past violent behavior.” The Commonwealth filed a number of informations against Appellant Sean Cullen-Doyle, each charging him with burglary, conspiracy, and theft-related offenses. Appellant pled guilty to several counts of criminal conspiracy to commit first-degree felony burglary and one count of first-degree felony burglary. The court found Appellant ineligible for the RRRI program and sentenced him to three-to-six years’ imprisonment on the burglary conviction, followed by an aggregate fifteen-year term of probation on the conspiracy counts. In a post-sentence motion, Appellant asked the court to reconsider his eligibility for the program. The court denied the motion for reconsideration, referencing Appellant’s “prior first degree burglary conviction,” although it was unclear whether the court was referring to the present offense or another, earlier offense. On appeal, Appellant maintained he was never convicted of burglary on a prior occasion, and the Commonwealth admitted it could not find any indication of such a prior conviction. Therefore, the parties filed a joint motion to remand the matter to the common pleas court to determine whether that court’s ruling was based on inaccurate information concerning Appellant’s criminal record. The Superior Court acknowledged the confusion on this point but found the uncertainty immaterial and denied the motion, concluding that Appellant was ineligible for the RRRI program based solely on his present conviction for a crime of violence. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded the RRRI Act was a statute subject to the rule of lenity, thus any ambiguity surrounding the meaning of the word “history” (as was deemed an issue here) should have been resolved in favor of those seeking admission into the program. The Court reversed the Superior Court and remanded for further proceedings. View "Pennsylvania v. Cullen-Doyle" on Justia Law