Justia Pennsylvania Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Appellant Rod Jones, Jr. was charged with rape and various sexual offenses following allegations by his stepdaughter (“the victim”) of repeated sexual abuse over a period of several years. According to the victim, the first instance of abuse occurred when she was thirteen year sold. The victim did not tell anyone about these incidents for many years. because Appellant told her no one would believe her. The victim also feared what Appellant would say about her to her mother. When the victim was seventeen years old, she eventually told her mother about the abuse. Throughout the trial, defense counsel focused on discrepancies in the victim’s recounting of events in an attempt to undermine her credibility. At one point, the Commonwealth called as a witness Detective Scott Holzwarth, who interviewed the victim during the course of the investigation. The jury ultimately found Appellant guilty of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person under sixteen years of age, unlawful contact with a minor, aggravated indecent assault, sexual assault, statutory sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of minors, and indecent assault of a person under sixteen years of age. The trial court sentenced Appellant to an aggregate term of twenty-seven to sixty years’ imprisonment. Appellant filed a post-sentence motion, which the trial court denied. On appeal, Appellant argued, inter alia, that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing Detective Holzwarth to testify that child sexual assault victims were often unable to recall specific details and dates of sexual assaults. The Supreme Court found that expert testimony on the issue of a witness’s credibility was impermissible, as it encroached on the province of the jury to make such determinations. "While some testimony on this topic may be prohibited for impermissibly invading the jury's province of determining credibility, we disagree that all testimony will." The Court held that whether Detective Holzwarth's testimony complied with admissibility considerations was a question for the trial court upon remand. The superior court's judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for a new trial. View "Pennsylvania v. Jones Jr." on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review in this case to consider the Superior Court’s application of the Independent Source Doctrine as a basis for upholding the trial court’s order denying the suppression motion filed by appellant Dennis Katona. Secondarily, the Court considered the validity of an intercept order issued under Section 5704(2)(iv) of the Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act (“Wiretap Act”), which permitted the recording of in-home conversations when only one party consented, so long as the intercept was approved by an authorized prosecutor and the president judge of a court of common pleas finds that probable cause supports the order. In 2009, the Pennsylvania State Police (“PSP”) began working with a confidential informant (“CI”) who was a member of the Pagan Motorcycle Club. The CI, who had previously provided reliable evidence in other criminal investigations, informed Trooper Matthew Baumgard that appellant was also a member of the Pagans. In 2011, the CI contacted Trooper Baumgard to alert him appellant had unexpectedly arrived at his house that evening and offered to sell him three one-half ounce packages of cocaine for $650 per package. The following day, the CI again reached out to Trooper Baumgard, this time to inform him appellant had made a similar unsolicited stop at another Pagan member’s house in an attempt to sell the cocaine. Several weeks later, the CI was invited to appellant's home, and was again offered to purchase cocaine. The CI took the cocaine, left appellant’s home, immediately called Trooper Baumgard and turned it over to the PSP. The Commonwealth applied for a wiretap order allowing the CI to wear a recording device inside of appellant's home. Wearing the device, the CI made various controlled payments to appellant at appellant's home. During each encounter, Trooper Baumgard and his team surveilled the home and, thereafter, met with the CI to retrieve the recording device. Appellant filed an omnibus pre-trial motion seeking suppression of all evidence recovered from his home. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded the Superior Court properly involved the Independent Source Doctrine, and therefor did not reach the various statutory and constitutional challenges appellant raised relative to the Wiretap Act. View "Pennsylvania v. Katona" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review in this case of first impression to consider the Constitutional scope of warrants to search cell phones seized incident to arrest, relating to illegal narcotics activity and firearms possession. Upon review of the facts specific to this case, however, the Court determined the search warrant in this matter was "so lacking in probable cause that it failed to justify any search of appellant's cell phone." The Court thus reversed the trial court's order, finding appellant's motion to suppress evidence obtained related to that search warrant should have been granted. The matter was remanded for further proceedings. View "Pennsylvania v. Johnson" on Justia Law

In 1983, after invading the home of three elderly siblings -- James, Angelina, and Victor Lunario -- Appellant David Chmiel stabbed them to death during the course of a robbery. Police found a makeshift mask at the scene that had been fashioned from a sweater sleeve. This distinctive sweater was soon identified as having belonged to Appellant’s brother, Martin Chmiel. Though initially denying involvement, Martin eventually admitted he and Appellant had jointly planned to burglarize the victims' home. Appellant would later be arrested and tried on three counts of first-degree murder (and other crimes on separate occasions), for which he received a death sentence. Martin testified consistent with police interviews in which he incriminated Appellant. Of particular relevance here, investigators attested to having found samples of hair on the sweater mask located at the crime scene. In June 2015, Appellant filed a serial PCRA petition, challenging the validity of expert testimony presented based on microscopic comparison of hair samples. He cited prominently to a joint press release of the FBI, the DOJ, the Innocence Project, and the NACDL, contending his convictions were based upon “unreliable scientific evidence,” and arguing that the press release was confirmatory. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the PCRA court, which found Appellant failed to demonstrate a reasonable probability the verdict against him would have been different at a trial with different expert testimony. View "Pennsylvania v. Chmiel" on Justia Law

In 2019, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court remanded this capital appeal to the PCRA court for further consideration of Russell Cox’s claim that, due to his intellectual disability, the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), precluded him from being sentenced to death. Upon remand, the PCRA court reconsidered the record and again determined Cox failed to establish he was entitled to relief. The Supreme Court vacated that second decision and remanded again for reconsideration. "[T]he Eighth Amendment compels courts applying our definition of intellectual disability to take into account, and to be guided by, current medical practices. The medical standards that we have adopted in Pennsylvania recommend the use of standardized measures, but do not mandate their use as the sole means to ascertain a person’s adaptive behaviors. Nor do current medical practices require clinicians or courts to ignore all other evidence when a standardized measure either is unavailable or incredible. The PCRA court operated under a contrary belief, and erroneously terminated its analysis prematurely upon determining that Dr. Toomer administered and evaluated the standardized test improperly. The court found that, without credible standardized test results, it became effectively impossible for Cox to show that he suffered from significant deficits in adaptive behavior. Our law neither compels nor supports this truncated analysis." View "Pennsylvania v. Cox" on Justia Law

Appellant Aquil Johnson claimed he was entitled to a refund of monies deducted from his inmate account pursuant to Act 84 because no procedural safeguards were in place when the deductions began. Recent decisions by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that, under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, certain safeguards had to be applied before the first Act 84 deduction was made in connection with a given criminal sentence. The issue before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in this case was whether relief was available where the first deduction was made before those decisions were announced. The Supreme Court found that due process mandated the Department of Corrections afford post-deprivation process analogous to the pre-deprivation procedures required by Bundy v. Wetzel, 184 A.3d 551 (2018). Further development was required to determine whether the Department already supplied Appellant with adequate post-deprivation process. The Court found Appellant failed to set forth a valid basis to implicate an administrative ability-to-pay hearing. The Commonwealth Court was affirmed insofar as it dismissed Appellant’s claims relating to negligence and the administrative ability-to-pay hearing; it was vacated to the extent it dismissed Appellant’s claim relating to due process. The matter is remanded for further proceedings. View "Johnson v. Wetzel" on Justia Law

Ordinarily, a petitioner seeking relief under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), has to file the petition within one year of the date upon which his or her judgment of sentence becomes final. The PCRA set forth three exceptions to this one-year limitation. Among these is the “newly discovered fact” exception, which rendered a petition timely when the petitioner establishes that “the facts upon which the claim is predicated were unknown to the petitioner and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence.” Interpreting this provision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that the newly discovered fact exception was limited by a presumption relating to matters of public record, pursuant to which a court may find that information available to the public is not a fact that is “unknown” to the petitioner. In this case, the superior court reversed the PCRA court’s order granting relief to Appellant Elwood Small, reasoning, inter alia, that the Supreme Court's holding in Commonwealth v. Burton, 158 A.3d 618 (Pa. 2017) did not apply to Small because he was represented by counsel some years earlier, in separate post-conviction proceedings, and thus could not be considered pro se for purposes of Burton. Although the Supreme Court ultimately concluded Small was not entitled to relief, it nonetheless was persuaded by Small’s frontal challenge to the public record presumption: "Small’s assertion of newly discovered facts is not foreclosed pursuant to a categorical presumption regarding matters of public record. However, because the Commonwealth has established that the factual record does not support Small’s position on the statutory requirements, Small nonetheless cannot establish the applicability of an exception to the PCRA’s time bar, and the PCRA court accordingly lacked jurisdiction to award him relief upon his substantive claims." View "Pennsylvania v. Small" on Justia Law

This case arose out of an altercation over a debt, during which Appellant Christopher Weir struck and damaged Jacob Korimko's motorcycle. Weir was charged with one count each of burglary, criminal mischief, harassment, and disorderly conduct. He proceeded to a non-jury trial in October 2017. Concerning the damage to his motorcycle, Korimko testified at trial that he paid $2492 to repair his vehicle: $1492 for new parts and $1000 to paint the new parts. Korimko testified that he could not afford the painting expense, so the new parts remained unpainted. The trial court found Weir guilty, and sentenced him to probate for two years and ninety days. The trial court also ordered restitution totaling $2000, noting it was "splitting the paint job cost only because we don’t have accurate detailed information in that regard." Weir filed a timely post-sentence motion, raising a challenge to the weight of the evidence supporting the verdict and a non-specified challenge to the restitution order, claiming the latter “exceeds the amount of loss suffered by [Korimko] in repairing the damage to his bike.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review to determine whether a challenge to the amount of restitution imposed pursuant to Section 1106 of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code implicated the discretionary aspects of sentencing or the legality of the sentence, "a dichotomy relevant to the need for issue preservation." Upon review, the Court concluded that a challenge to the sentencing court’s determination as to the amount of restitution sounded in sentencing discretion and, therefore, had to be preserved. The Superior Court’s ruling was affirmed; Weir’s restitution challenge implicated a discretionary aspect of the sentence that was not properly preserved and, therefore, was waived. View "Pennsylvania v. Weir" on Justia Law

In the early morning hours of April 22, 2015, several police officers, including Sergeant Joseph Blaze, were investigating a report of shots fired. The investigation lead Sergeant Blaze to the intersection of Frankstown Road and Robinson Boulevard. As the sergeant drove through that intersection with a green light, he heard tires squealing and observed a dark gray vehicle speeding directly at him. Appellant Bryan Hill was driving that vehicle; the vehicle entered the intersection in an uncontrolled skid and nearly hit Sergeant Blaze’s police car. The sergeant turned his vehicle around and pursued Appellant. Other officers soon joined in the pursuit. Sergeant Blaze and Officer Dustin Hess eventually observed Appellant walking away from his vehicle, which was parked in a residential driveway. As Appellant approached the front door of that residence, the officers noticed that he appeared to be intoxicated. Officer Hess ordered Appellant to stop so the officers could speak with him, but Appellant ignored the directive, choosing instead to pound on the front door of the home and to exclaim to the officers, inter alia, “I didn’t almost hit you . . . I wasn’t going too fast . . . I made it home.” The officers ultimately escorted Appellant to the police station for chemical testing. Appellant, however, was belligerent and uncooperative. He refused to take a breathalyzer test. Relevant to this appeal, the Commonwealth charged Appellant with two counts of DUI. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court addressed whether Appellant raised a non-waivable federal double jeopardy challenge to the legality of his sentence imposed for two guilty verdicts of driving under the influence of alcohol stemming from one act of DUI, and if so, whether that claim had merit. The Supreme Court concluded Appellant's double jeopardy claim, solely as it related to his second sentence for DUI, implicated the legality of his sentence, rendering the claim immune from waiver. "Regarding the substance of that claim, we need not reach a definitive conclusion that Appellant’s sentence violates double jeopardy because his sentence is illegal on non-constitutional grounds." Accordingly, the Court vacated in part the trial court's judgment and Appellant's second DUI sentence. View "Pennsylvania v. Hill" on Justia Law

This case was one of several similarly situated capital appeals involving former Chief Justice Ronald Castille’s role as the elected District Attorney of Philadelphia. In 2017, the Honorable Leon Tucker, Supervising Judge of the Criminal Division, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas (“PCRA court”), granted appellant Anthony Reid relief under the Post-Conviction Relief Act in the form of nunc pro tunc reinstatement of his right to appeal the order denying his first timely PCRA petition. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court previously affirmed the order denying appellant’s first PCRA petition; however, the PCRA court concluded the Supreme Court had to reconsider appellant’s PCRA appeal again, this time without the participation of Chief Justice Castille, pursuant to Williams v. Pennsylvania, 136 S.Ct. 1899 (2016). While the Pennsylvania Court agreed Chief Justice Castille’s participation in appellant’s prior PCRA appeal implicated the same due process concerns at issue in Williams, the Supreme Court concluded the lower court lacked jurisdiction under the PCRA to reinstate appellant’s nunc pro tunc right to appeal. Consequently, the Supreme Court also lacked jurisdiction, and was compelled to quash this serial appeal as untimely. View "Pennsylvania v. Reid" on Justia Law