Com. v. Cameron

• Decision Date: 16 July 2001
• Citation: 780 A.2d 688
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. George CAMERON, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

780 A.2d 688

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. George CAMERON, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued March 13, 2001.

Filed July 16, 2001.

Harry J. Cancelmi, Waynesburg, for appellant.

Linda Chambers, Assistant District Attorney, Waynesburg, for Com., appellee.

BEFORE: ORIE MELVIN, TODD, and KELLY, JJ.

TODD, J.

¶ 1 George Cameron appeals the judgment of sentence of March 30, 2000 of life imprisonment without parole entered following his conviction of first-degree murder.¹ Because we find that the trial court erred in categorically denying the defense's request to play an audiotape of Cameron's confession for the jury's consideration as evidence as to its voluntariness, we affirm the judgment of sentence, but remand for a hearing on the audiotape's relevance.

¶ 2 The record reveals the following factual background necessary for our resolution of this appeal: Cameron was arrested on August 5, 1999 for the murder of David Cumberledge. Cumberledge apparently had been seeing Cameron's estranged wife, Lisa Cameron. According to testimony presented at trial, Cameron had threatened to kill Cumberledge during at least two separate confrontations with him in the days before the killing. On the day of the homicide, Cameron was observed by at least two witnesses carrying two hunting knives on his person. Aware that Cameron wished to see her, Ms. Cameron had implored Cumberledge to stay away from her. Around midnight on August 4, Cameron was at his wife's apartment, and according to his wife, he had been drinking. Following a confrontation with her, as Cameron was leaving her apartment he found Cumberledge in the hallway. Cameron suggested they fight and the two disappeared into the hallway outside of Ms. Cameron's view. Ms. Cameron heard struggling, then heard Cumberledge scream, and she "heard" stabbing, although she could not see what was going on. As she went out on her back porch to call for help, she saw Cameron run past holding a knife. She saw no one else in the apartment building during this time. Cumberledge, bloodied, stumbled back into the apartment with approximately 16 stabbing and cutting wounds,² and soon died.

¶ 3 A witness later observed Cameron, shirtless, jumping out of the weeds on a nearby street. A blood-stained shirt was later recovered in that area. Also, a knife with the victim's blood on it was discovered in a nearby dumpster. Cameron was apprehended about an hour later, in the early hours of August 5, hiding under the trailer of a friend. Cameron was wearing socks which were soaked with a large amount of the victim's blood. Also, what appeared to be a suicide note was found on him. He smelled of alcohol and apparently had ingested a large quantity of a prescription tranquilizer, Librium, which was found to be missing from the trailer.

¶ 4 Cameron was taken to the Greene County Jail, but the police and the district attorney declined to interview him at that time because they concluded he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs and in a "stupor." Several witnesses testified as to his impaired condition at the time of his arrest. After his arrest, when an officer asked another officer who had "expired," Cameron blurted out that it was Cumberledge and "that is what happens when someone pulls a knife on me." (N.T. Trial, 3/28/00, at 70, 95.) At his arraignment at 8:00 a.m. that morning, Cameron was observed sitting and lying on the floor.

¶ 5 On August 6, around 4:00 p.m., the police and the district attorney concluded that Cameron was capable of being interviewed. He was advised of his Miranda rights and, after waiving his right to counsel, he consented to an interview by the district attorney and Lieutenant Glenn Bates, and gave a statement, ultimately confessing to the crime. This interview was recorded on audiotape.

¶ 6 Prior to trial, the trial court denied Cameron's motion to suppress the statement. At trial, the Commonwealth offered a transcript of the confession into evidence. The trial court overruled Cameron's objection to the admission, but ruled that the transcript would not go to the jury and that such evidence would have to be elicited from the Commonwealth's witnesses.³ Thereafter, Lieutenant Bates testified to the substance of Cameron's statement as follows:

He gave several statements, at first he denied he had anything to do with it, he indicated that possibly there was a third person in the hallway with David Cumberledge. During the interview he was asked if he had a knife with him at first he indicated that he did not stab David Cumberledge that night that it was the third person in the hallway that did the crime and left. Then he changed his story during the interview and indicated he did stab David E. Cumberledge and that it could have been self defense, the defendant changed his story and did acknowledge stabbing David Cumberledge.

(N.T. Trial, 3/28/00, at 120-21.) Later, in the presentation of the defense's case, defense counsel sought to have the tape recording played to the jury as evidence of his impaired condition at the time of the interview. The trial court sustained the Commonwealth's objection to this request "at this point in time at least unless it later becomes relevant," but allowed the tape to be entered into the record. (N.T. Trial, 3/28/00, at 492-93.) The tape was never played to the jury.

¶ 7 The jury was charged on the crimes of first and third-degree murder and voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. On March 30, 2000, the jury found Cameron guilty of first-degree murder and thereafter he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Following the denial of his post-sentence motions, Cameron filed this timely appeal. On appeal, Cameron asks:

Did the trial judge, who failed to listen to or to read the transcript of a defendant's statement, abuse his discretion or err in sustaining Commonwealth's objection to the introduction of the entire audiotape statement after the Commonwealth introduced a brief three-sentence paraphrase of the statement in its case in chief, especially where the statement was relevant to the issue of the (1) voluntariness of confession, (2) accuracy and completeness of the policeman's summary, and (3) the defendant's state of mind in a criminal homicide prosecution?

(Appellant's Brief, p. 4.)

¶ 8 This Court has consistently held that "[a] trial court's rulings on evidentiary questions are controlled by the discretion of the trial court and [an appellate] [c]ourt will reverse only for clear abuse of that discretion." Commonwealth v. Viera, 442 Pa.Super. 348, 659 A.2d 1024, 1028 (1995) (citations omitted). It is wellsettled that "[a]n abuse of discretion is not merely an error of judgment, but is rather the overriding or misapplication of the law, or the exercise of judgment that is manifestly unreasonable, or the result of bias, prejudice, ill-will or partiality, as shown by the evidence or the record." Commonwealth v. Kubiac, 379 Pa.Super. 402, 550 A.2d 219, 223 (1988).

¶ 9 Cameron first argues that the trial court erred in refusing his request to play the audiotape of the statement, given that the Commonwealth had introduced a summary of the statement through the testimony of Lieutenant Bates. His argument is, essentially, that since the Commonwealth had introduced part of the statement, then he was entitled to have the entire statement introduced. We disagree.

¶ 10 Had the Commonwealth introduced portions of the transcript of his confession, then our conclusion would be different. Rather, without referring to the transcript, the officer testified as to his recollection of Cameron's confession to the murder. Therefore, we cannot agree that this testimony entitled the defense to introduce the entire audiotaped statement. Cameron was free to cross-examine Lieutenant Bates as to the substance of the confession and test his observations. Further, Cameron has not suggested that anything to which Lieutenant Bates testified vis-a-vis the confession was at all inaccurate. For these reasons, the cases cited by Cameron either support our conclusion or are inapposite to his claim.⁴ As a result, we reject this contention.

¶ 11 Cameron next argues that, as the voluntariness of the confession was an issue for the jury's consideration, the trial court erred in failing to allow him to introduce the taped confession as evidence as to its voluntariness. This would appear to be a matter of first impression for this Court, as we have located no cases, nor does Cameron or the trial court cite to any, which address a trial court's denial of a defendant's request to admit a taped confession on the issue of its voluntariness.

¶ 12 Despite a pretrial ruling that a confession is voluntary, as occurred here, a criminal defendant nonetheless is entitled to a second opportunity to test the voluntariness of his statement by introducing evidence at trial relating to voluntariness and have the jury consider the question. Commonwealth v. Cunningham, 471 Pa. 577, 590-91, 370 A.2d 1172, 1179 (1977); see also Pa.R.Crim.P. 581(J).⁵ In this situation, the jury may not assess the evidentiary weight of the confession "until it first makes an independent finding that the confession was voluntarily made." Id. at 591, 370 A.2d at 1179.⁶ Nevertheless, the trial court still has the responsibility to determine the relevance and admissibility of any voluntariness evidence proffered by the defense. Id. at 591-92, 370 A.2d at 1179.

¶ 13 Cameron did not appeal the pretrial ruling that the confession was voluntary and admissible. Thus, the issue before us is not the "admissibility" of the confession—i.e., whether the jury properly heard evidence of Cameron's confession.⁷ To the contrary, this case presents the unique situation where the defendant sought to have the jury hear the taped confession. The issue, therefore, is whether the jury was properly prohibited from hearing the tape which Cameron asserts reflects on the...