Justia Pennsylvania Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In October 2006, Appellant Robert Flor entered a plea of guilty to the first-degree murder of Officer Brian Gregg, of the Newtown Borough Police Department. He further entered pleas nolo contendere to various other charges in connection with the events of September 29, 2005. A jury found: (1) the victim was a peace officer; (2) Appellant committed the murder during the perpetration of a felony; (3) in the commission of the offense, Appellant knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person in addition to the victim; and (4) Appellant had a significant history of violent felony convictions. The jury found no mitigating circumstances. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed Appellant’s death sentence on July 22, 2010, and the United States Supreme Court denied his petition for writ of certiorari on April 18, 2011. In May 2011, Appellant filed a timely pro se motion for post-conviction relief pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). In November 2018, the PCRA court denied the petition, and Appellant appealed to the Supreme Court. After review, the Supreme Court found no reversible error in the PCRA court's denial of relief, and affirmed. View "Pennsylvania v. Flor" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted allowance of appeal to consider whether the Commonwealth Court erred in quashing the notice of appeal filed by the Family Court of the Court of Common Pleas of the First Judicial District (the Family Court) on the basis that the trial court’s order was not an appealable collateral order under Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 313. Because the Court concluded the trial court’s order denying summary judgment on sovereign immunity grounds was a collateral order, appealable as of right under Rule 313, the Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court and remanded to the Commonwealth Court for further proceedings. View "Brooks v. Cole, et al." on Justia Law

Appellee Northside Leadership Conference (NLC), was a non-profit community development corporation that owned contiguous real property in Pittsburgh situated in a local neighborhood commercial zoning district designated for mixed use. In 2018, NLC applied for variances and special exceptions necessary to, inter alia, maintain the retail space, remodel and reopen the restaurant and permit the construction of six additional dwelling units. In 2018, a three-member panel of the Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) conducted a hearing on NLC’s applications. Appellants Stephen Pascal and Chris Gates attended the hearing and objected to NLC’s applications. The ZBA ultimately granted the variance and special exception applications. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review to consider whether the Commonwealth Court erred in approving a decision granting zoning relief despite: (1) the timing of the decision and (2) the alleged conflict of interest of one member of a three-member panel of the ZBA. We affirm in part and reverse in part, and remand for a new hearing before a different three-member panel of the ZBA.The Supreme Court found that the ZBA member ruling on the propriety of zoning applications brought by an organization on whose board she sat at all relevant times "so clearly and obviously endangered the appearance of neutrality that her recusal was required under well-settled due process principles that disallow a person to be the judge of his or her own case or to try a matter in which he or she has an interest in the outcome." The Supreme Court held the Commonwealth Court erred in rejecting appellants’ arguments on this issue and upholding the resulting tainted ZBA decision. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court’s order in part and reversed in part. The matter was remanded for a new hearing on the appellee NLC’s zoning applications before a newly constituted panel of the ZBA. View "Pascal, et al. v. City of Pgh ZBA, et al." on Justia Law

The Appellee in this case, K.N.B., was a freshman at Clarion University in 2015. K.N.B. claimed that a fellow Clarion student, M.D., sexually assaulted her in September 2015. K.N.B. initially did not report the assault to the police. Only after seeing M.D. at a Walmart in early 2018 did K.N.B. report the assault to the Clarion University Police Department. By this time, K.N.B. was no longer a student at the University. The main question this appeal presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review was whether a petition seeking a protective order under the Protection of Victims of Sexual Violence or Intimidation Act (“PVSVIA”) was subject to the two-year statute of limitations governing certain enumerated civil actions, or the six-year catch-all statute of limitations that applies to non-enumerated actions. Because the Supreme Court concluded that the six-year limitations period applied, affirming the superior court. View "K.N.B. v. M.D." on Justia Law

In this appeal by allowance, the issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's consideration centered on whether the Commonwealth was permitted to introduce nearly all of a child sexual assault victim’s forensic interview in rebuttal pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Evidence 106. In January 2011, Appellant Thomas Raboin began dating K.B. He moved into K.B.’s home shortly thereafter, where she lived with her three minor daughters and multiple other individuals. At this time, K.B.’s eldest daughter (“the victim”) was in kindergarten. Appellant moved out a few years later when the couple ended their relationship, at which point the victim was in second grade. During the victim’s fourth-grade year, she disclosed to her mother that Appellant had sexually abused her while living in their home. K.B. immediately contacted the police, who arranged for a forensic interview. The forensic interview was videotaped and observed by a detective behind a one-way mirror. Appellant was subsequently arrested and charged with: involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, unlawful contact with a minor, indecent assault of a person less than thirteen years of age, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of minors, and indecent exposure. In 2018, Appellant proceeded to a jury trial. Appellant testified in his own defense at trial, denying the allegations. At the conclusion of Appellant’s presentation of evidence, the Commonwealth requested to play the victim’s forensic interview in rebuttal on the basis that it was a prior consistent statement. Following a lengthy in-chambers discussion involving specific objections to portions of the forensic interview, the trial court largely permitted its introduction, aside from several pages that the court reasoned were hearsay. The trial court’s rationale for allowing introduction of the forensic interview was that it constituted a prior consistent statement and rehabilitative evidence. The Supreme Court concluded that introduction of the interview on this basis was improper, and remanded for the Superior Court to consider, as the trial court initially concluded, whether the interview was nonetheless admissible as a prior consistent statement under Pa.R.A.P.613(c). View "Pennsylvania v. Raboin" on Justia Law

In 2017, Appellant Waylynn Howard (Mother) and her three-year-old daughter (Child) were riding in a car-for-hire which was involved in a three-vehicle accident on a state highway outside of Pittsburgh. At the time of the accident, Mother was sitting in the front passenger seat of the vehicle, and Child was sitting in the back seat, on the passenger side. There was no car seat in the vehicle, and none of the occupants were wearing seatbelts. None of the individuals involved sustained serious injuries. A police officer responded to the scene, and, based on his affidavit of probable cause, Mother was charged with reckless endangerment of another person, and endangering the welfare of a child, a first-degree misdemeanor. At a stipulated bench trial based entirely on the affidavit of probable cause, Mother was convicted of both offenses. The trial court imposed a sentence of one year probation for Mother’s conviction for endangering the welfare of a child, and no further penalty for her conviction for reckless endangerment. Mother appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain both of her convictions. In an unpublished memorandum opinion, a divided panel of the Superior Court reversed Mother’s conviction for reckless endangerment of another person, finding her actions did not rise to the level of criminal recklessness. However, the panel affirmed Mother’s conviction for endangering the welfare of a child. In this appeal by allowance, the issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s review centered on whether whether evidence that a parent allowed her child to ride in a car-for-hire without being restrained by a child safety seat was, without more, sufficient to support a conviction for endangering the welfare of children under 18 Pa.C.S. 4304(a)(1). The Court concluded that it was not. Accordingly, the Superior Court’s decision was reversed and Appellant’s conviction and judgment of sentence were vacated. View "Pennsylvania v. Howard" on Justia Law

In 2002, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (“LECOM”) petitioned the Court of Common Pleas of Erie County to establish a private police force, which was granted. Since that time, LECOM has petitioned the common pleas court for the appointment of additional officers. Relevant here, from March of 2016 through November of 2019, the Honorable Stephanie Domitrovich had signed several orders, granting petitions filed by LECOM to appoint the private police officers. Judge Domitrovich’s son, Attorney Aaron Susmarski, represented LECOM in these matters. In 2019, a fellow member of the judiciary informed the Honorable John Trucilla, then-President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Erie County, that Judge Domitrovich repeatedly signed orders and granted her son’s petitions filed on behalf of LECOM. Judge Trucilla further became aware that Judge Domitrovich personally had signed her son’s name on a LECOM petition, personally filed some of the petitions on her son’s behalf, and personally submitted filing fees in relation to some of the petitions. Receiving no assurance from Judge Domitrovich that she would stop facilitating and adjudicating petitions filed by her son, President Judge Trucilla issued the administrative order now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found the order was not appealable. The Court further declined to exercise King’s Bench jurisdiction over this purely administrative matter and, instead, invoked its general supervisory and administrative authority over the courts afforded by Article V, Section 10(a) of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Court expressed its intent to dispose of this controversy internally, "as is typical of administrative court disputes." View "In Re: Domitrovich" on Justia Law

This appeal centered on whether law enforcement agents violated the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution when, although issuing Miranda warnings to an arrestee during an interrogation, they failed to specifically apprise him that criminal charges already had been filed against him. In October 2016, Appellant Jordan Rawls and Joseph Coleman perpetrated a home-invasion robbery, during which Kristine Kibler and her son, Shane Wright, were shot and killed. An accomplice, Casey Wilson, served as getaway driver. While shackled, Appellant was interrogated by agents for a period of five-and-one- half hours. At the outset, the lead investigator read Appellant his Miranda rights. He was also specifically admonished that: he was under arrest; he wasn’t free to leave; the agents were investigating the criminal homicides that had appeared in the news; and they had probable cause to obtain a warrant for his arrest. The agents, however, did not specifically advise Appellant that charges already had been lodged against him. During the interrogation, Appellant initially denied knowing Coleman or Wilson and pervasively lied about his whereabouts before, at, and after the time of the home invasion. The agents repeatedly confronted him with contrary evidence. Ultimately, Appellant admitted that he was present at the crime scene when the robbery and homicides were committed, but he professed to having been unarmed, claiming to have served “basically like . . . the lookout.” With regard to the charges filed, Appellant argued that without such information, the waiver of his rights could not be deemed to have been knowing and intelligent. After conducting a hearing, the suppression court found that Appellant had rendered a valid waiver of his right to counsel after receiving appropriate Miranda warnings; the court found nothing to indicate that he was incapable of understanding the rights explained to him and no evidence that the agents threatened, tricked, or cajoled him. Finding no error in the suppression court's judgment, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed: there was no per se rule invalidating such a waiver merely because an arrestee was not advised that charges had been filed. View "Pennsylvania v. Rawls" on Justia Law

The issue presented to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in this appeal centered on whether Appellant James Cobbs’ conviction of assault by a life prisoner was vitiated where a court subsequently vacated his predicate sentence of life imprisonment on grounds that it violated the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and resentenced him on the underlying offense to a term of 40 years to lifetime incarceration. The Supreme Court held that under the circumstances presented, Appellant’s life sentence imposed for his conviction of assault by a life prisoner could not stand. View "Pennsylvania v. Cobbs" on Justia Law

The trial court in this case denied a county agency’s petitions to terminate involuntarily the parental rights of a mother. The agency appealed to the Superior Court, which reversed the trial court’s order and effectively terminated the mother’s parental rights to two of her children. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the mother’s petitions for allowance of appeal to consider two issues: (1) whether the Superior Court’s decision conflicted with the Supreme Court's decision in In re R.J.T., 9 A.3d 1179 (Pa. 2010); and (2) whether the Superior Court erred by substituting its judgment for that of the trial court. After review, the Supreme Court concluded the Superior Court exceeded its standard of review. "Rather than examining the record to determine whether it supports the trial court’s conclusion that the various conditions that led to the Children’s removal from Mother’s custody no longer continue to exist, the intermediate court focused exclusively on one condition that led to the Children’s removal, i.e., Mother’s mental health issues, and searched the record to support its view that Mother has failed to address this condition adequately. Because the Superior Court erred by substituting its judgment for that of the trial court, we vacate the Superior Court’s judgment and reinstate the trial court’s order." View "In the Interest of: S.K.L.R." on Justia Law