Com. v. Allshouse

• Decision Date: 29 December 2009
• Docket Number: No. 55 WAP 2008,55 WAP 2008
• Citation: 985 A.2d 847
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Ricky Lee ALLSHOUSE, Jr., Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

985 A.2d 847

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Ricky Lee ALLSHOUSE, Jr., Appellant.

No. 55 WAP 2008

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued March 4, 2009.

Decided December 29, 2009.

David B. Chontos, Chontos & Chontos, P.C., for Ricky Lee Allshouse, Jr.

Jeffrey D. Burkett, Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Jules Epstein, Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg, Philadelphia, Marissa Boyers Bluestine, Defender Association of Philadelphia, for Amicus Curiae Defender Association of Philadelphia.

BEFORE: CASTILLE, C.J., SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER, TODD, GREENSPAN, JJ.

OPINION

Justice TODD.

Ricky Lee Allshouse, Jr. appeals the April 18, 2007 order of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, which affirmed the judgment of sentence imposed by the Jefferson County Court of Common Pleas following his convictions of simple assault¹ and endangering the welfare of a child.² For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

On May 20, 2004, Appellant and M.R. ("Mother") were arguing in the home they shared with their three children. Appellant was shouting from the living room, and Mother was in the kitchen. The couple's 7-month-old twin sons, J.A. and M.A., were in a playpen in the living room, and their 4-year-old daughter, A.A., was playing nearby. Mother's 8-year-old son, R.R., who also lived in the home, had already left for school. Mother reported to police that, at one point, she heard a "squeak" as Appellant sat on a recliner in the living room and, minutes later, she heard him get up from the recliner. She then heard J.A. crying. N.T. Trial, 9/19/05, at 46-47. As Mother ran to the living room, she passed Appellant, who was heading upstairs. Mother observed that A.A. was now in the playpen, holding J.A.'s head on her lap. When Mother picked up J.A., "his arm flopped backwards." Id. at 147. Mother took J.A. to the emergency room, where it was determined that he had suffered a spiral fracture to the right humerous caused by sharp and severe twisting of the arm.

Hospital officials immediately contacted Jefferson County Children and Youth Services ("CYS"), and CYS caseworker John Geist arrived at the hospital and spoke with Dr. Craig Burke, the emergency-room physician who treated J.A. Dr. Burke opined that the spiral fracture of J.A.'s arm indicated abuse. Geist then spoke with Mother, and advised her that J.A. would need to be removed from the family home pending investigation. Mother agreed that J.A. and his siblings would stay with their paternal grandparents.

On May 27, 2004, Appellant suggested to Geist that "possibly [A.A.] had caused injury to [J.A.]." N.T. Hearing, 9/16/05, at 9.³ Accordingly, that same day, Geist went to A.A.'s paternal grandparents' home to speak with A.A. Geist and A.A. sat and talked on the front porch of the house, while A.A.'s grandparents, siblings, and others were inside. During the interview, A.A. told Geist that Appellant had caused J.A.'s injury.⁴ After his interview with A.A., Geist spoke with his supervisor, and the two agreed to arrange an evaluation of A.A. by Dr. Allen Ryen, a psychologist. Dr. Ryen interviewed A.A. on June 8, 2004, and during the interview, A.A. again implicated Appellant in J.A.'s injury.⁵

On June 11, 2004, Appellant was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, endangering the welfare of a child, reckless endangerment, and harassment. On September 16, 2005, the trial court conducted a hearing pursuant to the Tender Years Hearsay Act ("TYHA"), 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 5985.1, to determine whether the statements given by A.A. to Geist and Dr. Ryen, admittedly hearsay, were admissible under the tender years exception to the hearsay rule.⁶ Under the TYHA, certain out-of-court statements made by a child victim or witness may be admissible at trial if the child either testifies at the proceeding or is unavailable as a witness, and the court finds "that the evidence is relevant and that the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient indicia of reliability." 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 5985.1(a)(1).

Analyzing the statements under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), the trial court first noted that A.A.'s statements to Geist and Dr. Ryen fell "in between" testimonial and nontestimonial statements "because we do have some questioning." N.T. Hearing, 9/16/05, at 61. The court explained, however:

I'm going to find it's nontestimonial for these basis [sic]. I think we have to look at what an objective four-year-old of average intelligence would think. And Mr. Geist, as he appears today, he does not have on a uniform but carries a badge, but not a badge in the sense of police work.

Dr. Ryen has a psychological appointment in the office to believe that later these statements would be used in Court. I certainly do not think for this four-year-old that she could make the determination that it would be available for use later at trial.

Id. at 61-62. The trial court determined that A.A.'s statements to Geist and Dr. Ryen satisfied the requirements of the tender years exception to the hearsay rule, and, under Crawford, would be admissible at trial.

On September 19, 2005, Appellant filed a motion for reconsideration, asserting A.A.'s statements constituted testimonial hearsay that was inadmissible under Crawford. Following argument, the trial judge denied the motion, reiterating his opinion that, in determining whether questioning should be deemed testimonial in nature, "you have to look at it from the 4-year-old's point of view because the concern is reliability in that regard." N.T. Hearing, 9/19/05, at 3. On September 20, 2005, a jury convicted Appellant of simple assault and endangering the welfare of a child; he was acquitted of the remaining charges.

On November 2, 2005, Appellant was sentenced to one to two years in prison, plus fines, costs, and restitution. Appellant filed a post-sentence motion, and a hearing on the motion was held on January 12, 2006. On March 9, 2006, the trial court denied Appellant's motion to the extent he sought judgment of acquittal on his child endangerment conviction.⁷ On April 3, 2006, Appellant appealed his judgment of sentence to the Superior Court, challenging, inter alia, the trial court's admission of A.A.'s statements to Geist and Dr. Ryen at trial.

With regard to the issues presently before this Court, the Superior Court agreed with the trial court that A.A.'s statements to Geist were nontestimonial in nature, and thus admissible under Crawford. The Superior Court concluded, however, that it could not determine, based on the record, whether A.A.'s statements to Dr. Ryen were testimonial because "it is impossible to determine what Dr. Ryen's primary purpose was in conducting the interview." Commonwealth v. Allshouse, 924 A.2d 1215, 1224 (Pa.Super.2007). Nevertheless, the Superior Court opined that it was unnecessary to determine whether A.A.'s statements to Dr. Ryen were testimonial because, even if they were, admission of the statements was harmless error since Dr. Ryen's testimony was merely cumulative of other properly admitted testimony, and there was overwhelming "untainted evidence" to support the jury's verdict. Id. at 1224-25.

The Superior Court declined to address Appellant's additional argument that the trial court's application of the 2004 amended version of the TYHA, which provides that an out-of-court statement of a child victim or witness under age 12 is admissible at trial if, inter alia, the child is unavailable as a witness and the trial court determines the circumstances surrounding the statement provide sufficient indicia of reliability, violated the prohibition against ex post facto laws. The Superior Court determined that, even if it did, the trial court could have admitted A.A.'s statements as nontestimonial hearsay under Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), based on a finding that A.A.'s testimony contained particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. The Superior Court ultimately affirmed Appellant's judgment of sentence in a published opinion on April 18, 2007.

Thereafter, Appellant filed a petition for allowance of appeal, and, on October 22, 2008, this Court granted Appellant's petition with respect to the following issues:

1. Does the Superior Court's decision conflict with U.S. Supreme Court precedent on the confrontation clause thereby creating a direct conflict with another Superior Court decision?

2. Did the Superior Court disregard this Court's harmless error precedent by allowing the Commonwealth to discharge its burden of proving harmless error through a two-sentence footnote?

3. Did the Superior Court decision misconstrue the reach of Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), and thereby insulate Pennsylvania's Tender Years Hearsay Act from an ex post facto challenge?

Commonwealth v. Allshouse, 598 Pa. 600, 959 A.2d 903 (2008) (order). This Court heard oral argument in this matter on March 4, 2009.

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." U.S. Const., amend. VI. This constitutional protection is known as the Confrontation Clause.⁸ In 1980, the United States Supreme Court, in Ohio v. Roberts, supra, held that the Confrontation Clause did not bar admission of an unavailable witness's statement against a criminal defendant, provided the statement was surrounded by "adequate indicia of reliability." 448 U.S. at 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531. Such indicia exist when the testimony being considered either fits within a "firmly rooted hearsay exception," or contains "particularized guarantees of trustworthiness." Id.

More than two decades after its decision in Roberts, the Supreme Court, in Crawford v. Washington, supra, overruled its Roberts decision. In doing so, the Crawford Court criticized...