Com. v. Brown
| Decision Date | 15 April 1998 |
| Citation | 711 A.2d 444,551 Pa. 465 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Kenneth BROWN, Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Catherine Marshall, Philadelphia, for Com., and Robert A. Graci, Harrisburg, Karen A. Brancheau, Philadelphia, for Com., Office of Attorney General.
Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO and NEWMAN, JJ.
Kenneth Brown (Brown) appeals a sentence of death imposed by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas following his conviction murder in the first degree, 1 rape, 2 and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse (IDSI). 3 We vacate the judgment of sentence and remand for a new sentencing hearing.
In August of 1993, Valerie Phillips (Phillips) and her two sons, eight-year-old Rahim and three-year-old Rafael, lived in a second floor apartment at 2238 Page Street in Philadelphia. Phillips' boyfriend, Brown, had also been residing with them since early July of 1993. At approximately 10:00 p.m. on August 3, 1993, Phillips went to a friend's house and left Rafael asleep at home with Brown. Rahim was staying with a relative. Phillips stayed out all night and did not return until about 5:00 a.m. the next morning. 4 When she returned, she fell asleep on the floor.
When she awoke, at roughly 9:00 a.m. and discovered that the defendant and Rafael were not there, she did not become alarmed at first because she knew that Brown often took Rafael to a local park. However, at about 9:00 p.m., after unsuccessfully attempting to locate Rafael or Brown several times, she called the police.
On August 5 and 6, 1993, the police searched her home and the surrounding neighborhood. At nearly 6:00 p.m. on August 6, 1993, while searching the nearby abandoned Rosen Housing Projects at 23rd and Diamond Streets, the police found Rafael's body in an elevator shaft sixteen to twenty feet under a heavy metal grate. Dr. Bennett Preston, an Assistant Medical Examiner for the City of Philadelphia, examined Rafael's body at the scene and later conducted an autopsy. He noted bruises on his forehead, the back of his head, the left upper abdomen, the right outer abdomen, the left lower abdomen, the side of the liver, abrasions on the left upper back and back of the right thigh, a lacerated spleen, and evidence of bleeding in the abdominal cavity. The skin on Rafael's rectum was completely torn away from his anus, showing that someone forcibly placed a hard, blunt object into his anus. Rafael also had suffered massive injuries to his colon.
All tests for sperm and acid phosphatase, an enzyme found in semen, yielded negative results. Dr. Preston explained that Rafael's injuries and massive bleeding, coupled with the estimated sixty-hour time period that the body was left to rot under the grate, made D.N.A. 5 testing impossible.
Dr. Preston determined the cause of death to be multiple blunt force injuries and the manner of death to be homicide. He opined that the child was alive during the infliction of these wounds and finally lost consciousness because of blood loss. According to Dr. Preston, the object that was forced into the boy's rectum could have been a broomstick, a penis, or both. A pillow with blood stains found in Phillips' apartment suggested to the doctor that the boy's face was shoved into the pillow to stifle his screams.
The police immediately began a search for Brown. From various interviews, they discovered from a neighbor that he had been seen knocking on the door of his mother's residence. The neighbor had a brief conversation with Brown, during which he cried and told her that he loved his mother and that he would be going to jail. Brown also called his sister and told her that he hurt Rafael but did not want to go to jail. That same morning, he visited his employer and told him that he got himself in trouble and would miss a few days of work. He also asked for his paycheck for the week. His employer denied this request.
On August 7, 1993, police in Atlantic County, New Jersey arrested Brown for an unrelated burglary and placed him in prison there. At the time of his arrest, he gave the police two aliases and a false address and social security number. After Brown and other inmates in the Atlantic County prison saw a news story about Raphael's murder that showed a picture of Brown's face, he asked prison officials to separate him from other inmates because he was afraid they would harm him. Brown asked the prison to contact Philadelphia authorities, and he eventually waived extradition and was returned to Philadelphia.
Detectives searched Brown's person and took samples of his hair, saliva and blood. Detective Ivan Pitt took a statement from Brown in which he admitted that he hit Raphael and might have played a bit too rough with him but denied any sexual contact with the boy. He claimed that he unsuccessfully attempted to awaken Rafael in the apartment at 6:00 a.m., attempted C.P.R., and when he could not revive him, carried Rafael outside. The defendant also stated that he left him under the grate because he could not find help and was frightened.
On February 17, 1995, a jury convicted Brown of murder in the first degree, rape, and IDSI. At the conclusion of the penalty phase of the trial, the jury returned a sentence of death. The trial court denied Brown's post trial motions and formally imposed the sentence of death for first degree murder and no additional sentence for rape or IDSI.
In this appeal, Brown raises the following issues for our review:
I. Was the verdict finding Brown guilty of first degree murder supported by the weight and sufficiency of the evidence?
II. Did the trial court err when it denied Brown's motion to suppress his statements because the police did not give him Miranda warnings at the time of his arrest?
III. Did the trial court err when it denied Brown's motion to suppress the fruits of the police search based on Brown's assertion that the search warrant was invalid on its face because it did not stipulate whether the search was to be a daytime or nighttime search?
IV. Did the trial court err when it allowed the prosecutor to present life-sized slides of Raphael's body to the jury?
V. Did the Commonwealth present sufficient evidence of rape to warrant a jury instruction on this offense during the guilt phase?
VI. Was there sufficient evidence that Raphael was conscious to warrant a charge on the aggravating circumstance of torture during the penalty phase?
VII. Did the trial court err when it allowed the prosecutor to make allegedly prejudicial remarks during his opening statement, closing argument, and penalty phase of trial?
Brown challenges the weight and sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his convictions. 6 He argues that his conviction for first degree murder is against the weight and sufficiency of the evidence because his explanation of the circumstances surrounding Raphael's death is more credible than the Commonwealth's version.
In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we must determine whether the evidence, and all reasonable inferences deductible from the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, are sufficient to establish all of the elements of the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Marinelli, 547 Pa. 294, 690 A.2d 203 (1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 1309, 140 L.Ed.2d 473 (1988). To sustain a conviction for first degree murder, the Commonwealth must prove that a human being was unlawfully killed; that the accused did the killing; that the killing was done with malice aforethought; and that the killing was willful, deliberate and premeditated. Id. The willful, deliberate and premeditated intent to kill distinguishes first degree murder from all other degrees of murder. Commonwealth v. Wilson, 543 Pa. 429, 672 A.2d 293, cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 364, 136 L.Ed.2d 255 (1996). Circumstantial evidence may prove this specific intent to kill. Id.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the evidence at Brown's trial established that he sexually assaulted three-year-old Raphael brutally by thrusting his penis and/or a blunt object into his anus with such force that he severed the child's rectum. To silence Raphael, Brown repeatedly beat him in the head and elsewhere on his small body. The massive bleeding caused by the injury to Raphael's rectum eventually caused him to lose consciousness and die.
Notwithstanding Brown's attempt to claim that Raphael's death was an accident, his actions after the killing, including concealing the child's battered and bloody body in a secluded air shaft and fleeing the jurisdiction, evidence his consciousness of guilt and that the death was not an accident. The jury clearly disbelieved Brown's version of the events, and credited the testimony of the Commonwealth's witnesses.
We have found evidence sufficient to sustain a conviction for first degree murder where a defendant brutally killed a twoyear-old girl by "obliterating" her genital area, fracturing her skull, scalping her, inflicting a blunt force injury to her torso, and burning areas of her body. Commonwealth v. Edmiston, 535 Pa. 210, 634 A.2d 1078 (1993). We stated in that case than "any reasonable human being would realize these injuries will cause death to such an infant." Id. at 222, 634 A.2d at 1084. As in Edmiston, any reasonable human being would conclude that Brown's unmerciful attack on this defenseless three-year-old boy evidenced malice and a specific intent to kill him. Accordingly, the evidence was sufficient to sustain the jury's verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree.
Section 3123 of the Crimes Code, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3123, which defines the offense of IDSI, provides in pertinent part as follows:
A person commits a felony of the first degree...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Com. v. Wright
...the Commonwealth is entitled to utilize photographs to support its case on the cause of death of the victim, Commonwealth v. Brown, 551 Pa. 465, 485-486, 711 A.2d 444, 453 (1998), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1187, 123 S.Ct. 1351, 154 L.Ed.2d 1018 (2003),34 there is no basis upon which to disturb......
-
Com. v. Ogrod
...presenting a case to the jury and must be free to present his or her arguments with logical force and vigor." Commonwealth v. Brown, 551 Pa. 465, 711 A.2d 444, 454 (1998). In the instant case, the prosecutor asked the jurors to ask themselves why it was that Appellant confessed to the polic......
-
Commonwealth v. Freeman
...such as the admission or exclusion of evidence, which often depend upon trial context, are involved. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 551 Pa. 465, 711 A.2d 444, 456 (1998) ("Clearly, the trial court is in the best position to correct trial errors because it hears the objectionable matter and can ......
-
Com. v. O'DONNELL
...waiver. We do so either because the record provides an adequate basis to resolve the merits of the claim, see Commonwealth v. Brown, 551 Pa. 465, 711 A.2d 444, 456 (1998) (although waived, claim was considered on the merits since record allowed for such review) or because Appellant, who is ......