Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

An investigation led police to secure a search warrant for a residence in Lancaster County, where appellant Thomas-Lutz-Morrison lived with his mother and brother. A March 2, 2012, search led to the seizure of four computers and an Apple iPhone 4. On the same day, appellant admitted to detectives he had downloaded child pornography files to his computer. An examination revealed 142 child pornography videos and 45 child pornography images on the computer along with 15 child pornography images on appellant’s iPhone. Appellant was charged with 77 counts of sexual abuse of children (possession of child pornography). Appellant entered an open plea of guilty to three counts of possession of child pornography; the remaining charges were withdrawn by the Commonwealth. That same day, appellant was sentenced to consecutive one-year terms of probation on each count. The trial court also notified appellant his convictions subjected him to lifetime registration under SORNA as a Tier III offender. Appellant reserved an objection to that classification, averring the statute was ambiguous, and the only reason it arguably was triggered was because his plea encompassed more than one count. On appeal to the Superior Court, appellant claimed he should be classified as a Tier I offender because his multiple Tier I convictions arose from a single nonviolent course of conduct, and his plea occurred in a single hearing. The Superior Court affirmed in a memorandum opinion. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted review of the question whether appellant was properly subject to lifetime reporting under SORNA. Decided after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in "A.S. v. Pa. State Police, ( __A.3d __(2016)), the Court found that, like the "A.S." case, appellant here was charged in a single information arising from the search of his property; he entered court as a first-time offender on those charges and pled guilty to three counts - all Tier I offenses; and there were no direct victims of his crimes, much less multiple direct victims. "As such, the statute requires an act, a conviction, and a subsequent act to trigger lifetime registration for multiple offenses otherwise subject to a fifteen- or twenty-five-year period of registration." The Court reversed the Superior Court and remanded for imposition of a fifteen-year reporting requirement under SORNA. View "Pennsylvania v. Lutz-Morrison" on Justia Law

In this appeal by the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) from a grant of mandamus relief, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court revisited an issue concerning the proper construction of the lifetime-registration triggering language “two or more convictions” in Pennsylvania’s former sex offender registration statute, Megan’s Law II (superseded by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA)). This dispute arose after appellee had completed his sentence for the underlying crimes. Proceeding under a belief he was subject to a ten-year SORNA registration period (a belief shared at sentencing by the court and the prosecutor), appellee filed a Petition for Review in the Nature of a Complaint in Mandamus in the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction shortly before expiration of that period. The petition sought to compel PSP to correct appellee’s sexual offender registration status from lifetime registrant to ten-year registrant and to remove him from the registry when the ten-year period expired. In the course of litigation, the parties attached exhibits including the transcripts from appellee’s guilty plea and sentencing proceedings; ultimately, the parties stipulated discovery was unnecessary and cross-motions for summary judgment were filed. PSP maintained any person with two or more qualifying convictions at the moment of sentencing, such as appellee, was subject to lifetime registration. PSP claimed it properly interpreted and applied the statute and appellee had no right to mandamus relief. After review, the Supreme Court held that the provision, considered in the context of the statutory language as a whole, was amenable to two reasonable constructions. The Court held that the registration statute, which set forth a graduated scheme of registration, encompassed a recidivist philosophy. The Court therefore concluded the statute required an act, a conviction, and a subsequent act to trigger lifetime registration for multiple offenses otherwise triggering a ten-year period of registration. Accordingly, the Court affirmed. View "A.S. v. PA State Police" on Justia Law

Wayne Mitchell appealed the dismissal of his second petition for relief under the Post-Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”). Mitchell was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the September 10, 1997 murder of his estranged wife, Robin Little. The PCRA court dismissed Mitchell's petition without a hearing, determining the application was untimely made. The Supreme Court agreed and affirmed. View "Pennsylvania v. Mitchell" on Justia Law

Appellant Terrance Washington was charged with almost two dozen robbery offenses as well as related crimes, and he was convicted by jury trial relative to many of the charges and after pleas concerning others. In 1998, the common pleas court imposed an aggregate sentence of 35 to 70 years’ imprisonment, with the aggregate minimum encompassing multiple mandatory minimum sentences under Section 9712 of the Sentencing Code. Appellant did not initially pursue a direct appeal. He later obtained appellate review nunc pro tunc, however. That appeal was unsuccessful, and the judgments of sentence became final in 2006. Later that year, Appellant filed a timely petition under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). Notably, Appellant did not raise a Sixth Amendment challenge to the above directives of Section 9712(b). The PCRA court dismissed the petition, and several procedural irregularities ensued, which were addressed in a 2011 order of the Superior Court according Appellant the right to appeal from the dismissal of the post-conviction petition. In 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its Alleyne decision, overruling its prior precedent. The effect of Alleyne was to invalidate a range of Pennsylvania sentencing statutes predicating mandatory minimum penalties upon non-elemental facts and requiring such facts to be determined by a preponderance of the evidence at sentencing. The Superior Court disposed of Appellant’s appeal from the denial of postconviction relief via memorandum opinion in 2015, affirming in relevant part. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed appeal to consider the issue, as framed by Appellant, of “[a]re the mandatory sentences imposed upon petitioner illegal pursuant to Alleyne?” The Court held that Alleyne did not apply retroactively to cases pending on collateral review, and that Appellant’s judgment of sentence, therefore, was not illegal on account of Alleyne. View "Pennsylvania v. Washington" on Justia Law

In July 2010, appellee William Childs was residing with Michael Beander and Samuel Andrews in Andrews’ house. On July 29, 2010, Andrews invited Bryant Bell (“Victim”) to come over to celebrate Victim’s birthday. All four men were socializing in the residence when Childs and Victim began to argue. Beander and Victim exited the residence and sat on the front steps, while Andrews retreated to his bedroom. Childs remained in the house. But almost immediately, Childs and Victim restarted their argument, trading insults and threats through the screen door. After a few minutes of this back-and-forth, Victim ascended the stairs, picked up a broomstick that had been sitting on the porch, and approached the door. Victim overcame Childs’ efforts to hold the screen door closed and entered the residence. Victim struck Childs with the broomstick several times before Childs stabbed Victim in the chest. Although Childs stabbed Victim only once, Victim died from this wound. Childs was arrested and charged with homicide and possessing instruments of crime (“PIC”). In this appeal by the Commonwealth, the issue presented for the Supreme Court's review was whether Childs was entitled to a castle doctrine jury instruction pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S.A. sec. 505(b)(2.1), which became effective after Childs was charged with the crimes at issue but prior to his trial on those charges. The Court concluded that section 505(b)(2.1) did not affect a person’s right to use deadly force within his or her home, but rather created an evidentiary presumption relevant to the evaluation of such a claim of self-defense, and was therefore a procedural statute. As such, Childs was entitled to that jury instruction. The Court affirmed the Superior Court’s decision vacating Childs’ judgment of sentence and remanded for a new trial. View "Pennsylvania v. Childs" on Justia Law

In the summer of 1993, Christopher Williams and two codefendants, Theopolis Wilson (also referred to as “Binky” at trial) and Rick Bennett, appeared before a jury, each facing numerous charges related to the shooting deaths of Philadelphia cabdriver William Graham and three young men from New York, Otis Reynolds, Gavin Anderson and Kevin Anderson. James White, a purported eyewitness and accomplice to the murders, testified that Reynolds and the Anderson brothers were in Philadelphia to purchase two AK-47s from Williams. According to White, Williams was the leader of a gang that sold drugs and guns; White was a junior member. Unbeknownst to the victims, the arms deal was a ruse, and Williams planned to rob them when they met. On August 6, 1993, the jury convicted Williams of three counts of first-degree murder and related offenses for which he received three consecutive death sentences. Williams subsequently filed a timely PCRA petition raising twenty-four claims. Relevant here, Williams asserted therein that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to properly cross-examine the Commonwealth’s experts or call a forensic expert in defense, as the physical evidence did not align with White’s testimony about how the shootings occurred and their aftermaths. Before the Supreme Court were two appeals: the Commonwealth's appeal of the order entered by the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas granting Williams a new trial pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act; and Williams' protective cross-appeal challenging various unfavorable determinations made by the PCRA court on other claims he raised in his PCRA petitions. After careful review, the Court concluded that the record and the law supported the PCRA court’s findings that direct appeal counsel rendered ineffective assistance to Williams, and therefore affirmed. View "Pennsylvania v. Williams" on Justia Law

When 20-years-old, appellant Victoria Giulian was arrested and ultimately pled guilty to summary public drunkenness and harassment. At the same time, she was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct (later withdrawn) and underage drinking. To the two misdemeanors, appellant pled guilty. Approximately a year later, appellant was arrested and pled guilty to summary criminal mischief. Between 1998 and 2013, appellant had no arrests. She subsequently filed a petition seeking expungement of the summary convictions from her criminal history. The Commonwealth did not object to expungement of the withdrawn disorderly conduct charge and the guilty plea conviction for underage drinking, and the record of these charges was expunged. The Commonwealth did oppose expungement with respect to the other offenses. The Centre County Court of Common Pleas granted the petition with regard to the 1998 criminal mischief conviction, but denied expungement of the records relating to the 1997 public drunkenness and harassment convictions. The court acknowledged appellant was “conviction free for 16 years” after 1998, but determined appellant was not entitled to expungement of the earlier convictions because her 1998 arrest and plea meant she did not remain free of arrest or prosecution for “at least five years following the 1997 convictions” as required by 18 Pa. C.S. subsection (b)(3)(i). The Supreme Court considerd the statutory requirements for expungement of criminal history record information for summary convictions pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. 9122(b)(3) and concluded the lower courts erred in holding expungement unavailable as a matter of law in this matter. The Court therefore reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Pennsylvania v. Giulian" on Justia Law

Appellant Ryan Safka was the driver of an automobile that crashed killing three of his four passengers. The investigating police officer believed that Appellant’s speed caused the accident. He, in part, relied upon data retrieved from the vehicle’s Event Data Recorder (EDR) which recorded the vehicle’s speed for the five seconds prior to the airbag’s deployment. In his vehicular manslaughter bench trial, after the evidence was closed, the trial court reopened it to permit the parties to present additional evidence concerning the reliability of the EDR data. The question this case presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review was whether the trial court erred in reopening evidence. The Court held that because it was a non-jury trial, the trial court had the discretion to reopen the record sua sponte to receive additional testimony to avoid a miscarriage of justice, and did not abuse its discretion by doing so. View "Pennsylvania v. Safka" on Justia Law

In August 2012, Appellee Matthew Wolfe, then eighteen years old, engaged in sexual intercourse with a thirteen-year-old girl on several occasions. He was charged with and convicted by a jury trial for a number of sexual offenses, including two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. During Appellee’s trial and prior to sentencing, the United States Supreme Court issued its "Alleyne v. United States," (133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013)) decision, overruling its own prior precedent and establishing a new constitutional rule of law, grounded on the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed appeal in Wolfe's case to assess the validity of the Superior Court’s sua sponte determination that a sentencing statute was facially unconstitutional under Alleyne. "We are not unsympathetic to the plight of the Commonwealth in Alleyne’s wake, given the volume of the mandatory minimum sentences that must be stricken, and the scale of the task of resentencing. We also appreciate that, in enacting the mandatory minimum sentencing regime, the General Assembly had acted in good faith reliance on the previous jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States, which was discarded by that Court in Alleyne. Nevertheless, new constitutional rules of Alleyne’s magnitude often have unavoidable, wide-scale consequences." Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Superior Court's decision. View "Pennsylvania v. Wolfe" on Justia Law

In a direct appeal, the issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review involved a challenge to the regularity of the enactment of Act 192 of 2014. Act 192 began as House Bill 80 (“HB 80”), introduced in January 2013. Initially, HB 80 was a two-page bill which added the newly-defined offense of theft of secondary metal (such as copper and aluminum, or wire and cable used by utilities and transportation agencies) to the Crimes Code at Section 3935. The bill was titled, “AN ACT Amending Title 18 (Crimes and Offenses) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, defining the offense of theft of secondary metal; and prescribing penalties.” After undergoing minor revisions, HB 80 was approved by the House and sent to the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee added a section amending the existing trespass provision of the Crimes Code to specify that an individual who trespasses in order to steal secondary metal commits a first-degree misdemeanor as a “simple trespasser.” Meanwhile, in April 2013, a separate House bill, HB 1243, was introduced and began proceeding through the General Assembly. HB 1243 changed various provisions of subchapter 61(A) of the Crimes Code, (the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act of 1995). As amended on its second consideration in the House, the bill retained some of its original provisions and, important to this dispute, encompassed substantial additions to Section 6120, which generally prohibited counties and other municipalities from regulating the lawful ownership, possession, transfer, or transportation of firearms and ammunition. On October 15, 2014, HB 1243’s substantive provisions were folded into HB 80. The Supreme Court concluded that Act 192 violated the single-subject rule of Article III, Section 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. View "Leach v. Turzai" on Justia Law