Com. v. Carpenter

• Decision Date: 25 September 1986
• Citation: 515 A.2d 531,511 Pa. 429
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. James Henry CARPENTER, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 531

515 A.2d 531

511 Pa. 429

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. James Henry CARPENTER, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued May 13, 1986.

Decided Sept. 25, 1986.

[511 Pa. 431] C.N. Patterson, York, for appellant.

H. Stanley Rebert, Dist. Atty., York, for appellee.

Before NIX, C.J., and LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT, HUTCHINSON, ZAPPALA and PAPADAKOS, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

LARSEN, Justice.

James Henry Carpenter, appellant, brings this appeal from his conviction for murder of the first degree and from the judgment of sentence of death imposed by a jury upon that conviction. ¹ The record of his trial in the Court of Common Pleas of York County disclosed the following.

On September 30, 1983, at approximately 9:30 p.m., Jimmie Lee Taylor (the victim) was stabbed in the heart with a knife on South Penn Street in the City of York. The victim was intoxicated and had a blood alcohol content of .356 per cent. He was pronounced dead at the York Hospital at 10:58 p.m. that evening.

The Commonwealth's principal witness, Helen Ruth Emmil (Ms. Emmil), appellant's girlfriend at the time of the stabbing, testified that appellant had stabbed the victim. Ms. Emmil testified that she, appellant and another couple had been drinking in a bar until just before the stabbing. The four left to go to another bar, and were walking on South Penn Street when the victim crossed the street carrying a six-pack of beer and asked the group if anyone wanted some beer.

The victim was known to appellant and Ms. Emmil and there was animosity between them. Ms. Emmil had previously been the victim's girlfriend, but left him and began to live with appellant. The victim harassed her after that, and threatened her on several occasions. Appellant had spoken with the victim, who had a bad reputation for violence in the community, in an attempt to get him to quit harassing Ms. Emmil, but to no avail. Near the end of May, 1983, appellant was involved in a serious altercation with the victim wherein the latter, without apparent provocation, hit appellant in the face with a hatchet, knocking appellant unconscious and fracturing his jaw. Appellant was hospitalized and had to have his jaw wired in place.

When the victim approached the group on South Penn Street on September 30, 1983 at about 9:30 p.m., Ms. Emmil proclaimed "I hope there don't be no shit," whereupon the other couple, fearing an altercation, went on ahead to the bar, while appellant, Ms. Emmil and the victim stayed behind. According to Ms. Emmil, appellant took a knife from his pocket and, without provocation, stabbed the victim in the chest. The four inch blade of the knife pierced through his sternum and severed the top of his heart, and the victim fell to the sidewalk unconscious and died shortly thereafter.

Appellant then wiped off the blood from the knife with a handkerchief, closed the knife and tossed it and the handkerchief over a fence and into the back yard of a nearby house. The owner of the house happened to be the attorney for the City of York. He found the knife and handkerchief in his tomato garden the following morning and turned the items in to the police; they had not been there earlier on the evening of September 30, 1983. Appellant and Ms. Emmil then met the other couple at the bar as planned, and had some drinks.

After the stabbing, appellant threatened to kill Ms. Emmil if she told anyone what happened, and to add credibility to his threats told her that he had killed his ex-girlfriend. Initially, Ms. Emmil was frightened and did not tell the police what she knew about the stabbing when first questioned, but eventually she told them that appellant had stabbed the victim. Appellant was arrested and charged with murder.

Another Commonwealth witness testified that, in July, 1983, appellant offered him $500.00 to kill the victim. Appellant was aware that this witness had also been involved in a fight with the victim.

Appellant testified that Ms. Emmil (who was a large woman) had stabbed the victim without provocation on the evening of September 30, 1983, and that she had wiped the knife with a handkerchief and had thrown the objects over the fence. Appellant said that he did not go to the police because he wanted to cover up for his girlfriend, Ms. Emmil. He further stated that after the stabbing, he had asked a friend to purchase a knife similar to the one used by Ms. Emmil to confuse the police who, he was sure, would suspect him for the stabbing because of his known animosity toward the victim. Appellant admitted that he had had ill feelings towards the victim and that he had threatened revenge shortly after the victim had broken his jaw with the hatchet, but that his desire for revenge had subsided with the passage of time and that he eventually decided to forget about the incident. According to appellant, however, Ms. Emmil could not forget about the incident or the victim's harassment of her, and she became increasingly more distraught and fearful of the victim.

The jury believed Ms. Emmil's version of the stabbing, and returned a verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree on January 20, 1984. Pursuant to the Sentencing Code, a sentencing hearing was conducted immediately thereafter before the same jury. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9711(a). The Commonwealth introduced evidence to establish only one aggravating circumstance, that the appellant had "a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence to the person." 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9711(d)(9). This significant history consisted of a felony conviction for murder of the third degree and a felony conviction (arising from a separate incident) for assault by a prisoner. 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 2502(c) and 2703, respectively. The jury was instructed as to three possible mitigating circumstances, namely that "the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance," that "the defendant acted under extreme duress ... or acted under the substantial domination of another person," and "other evidence of mitigation concerning the character and record of the defendant and the circumstances of his offenses." 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9711(e)(2, 5 and 8, respectively). The jury found that appellant had a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence to the person, which aggravating circumstance outweighed any mitigating circumstances, and sentenced appellant to death. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9711(c)(1)(iv).

Post-trial motions were filed and denied by the Court of Common Pleas of York County on June 13, 1984 and appellant was formally sentenced on June 25, 1984. This direct appeal followed. We affirm appellant's conviction and judgment of sentence of death.

Initially, although appellant does not specifically challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, we hold that the record evidence was sufficient to sustain his conviction for murder of the first degree beyond a reasonable doubt. ² That evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, Commonwealth v. Rhodes, --- Pa. ----, 510 A.2d 1217, 1218 (1986), established that appellant willfully and intentionally stabbed the victim to death as an act of revenge for the victim's earlier assault on appellant and harassment of appellant's girlfriend. The specific intent to kill was supported by the inference that appellant's unprovoked use of a deadly weapon upon a vital part of the victim's body (i.e., piercing his sternum and cutting off the top of the victim's heart) was intended to kill him. Commonwealth v. O'Searo, 466 Pa. 224, 239-40, 352 A.2d 30, 37-38 (1976). Obviously, in finding appellant guilty, the jury rejected appellant's defense that the Commonwealth's key witness, Ms. Emmil, had stabbed Jimmie Lee Taylor to death.

Appellant asserts that his trial was tainted by the disclosure of a Commonwealth witness' occupation as an agent for the Pennsylvania Board of Parole which disclosure reasonably implied that appellant had a prior criminal record, thus prejudicing him before the jury. This argument has little merit.

Donald M. Jefferies was called by the Commonwealth to testify as to a conversation he had with appellant in August, 1983 regarding his broken jaw, and his reluctance to identify his attacker to the police. This conversation was introduced to establish that appellant's jaw had been broken in a scuffle, in order to support the Commonwealth's revenge motive theory. At the beginning of his testimony, Mr. Jefferies was asked "How are you employed?," and he answered: "Pennsylvania Board of Parole, Parole Agent." Notes of Testimony (N.T.), January 18, 1983, Vol. II at 47. The witness was then asked whether he knew the appellant and whether he had a conversation with him concerning an injury he sustained. The witness answered that he did know appellant, and recounted the conversation he had with appellant about appellant's broken jaw. Appellant told the witness that he did not know who his attacker was, and declined the witness' suggestions that he go to the police. At no time was it stated or even suggested that Mr. Jefferies was appellant's parole officer nor that he knew appellant in some official capacity. No objection was made at the time to Mr. Jefferies' disclosure that he was a parole agent for the Pennsylvania Board of Parole.

Three witnesses later, counsel for appellant lodged an objection to Donald Jefferies' disclosure of his occupation, explaining to the court that he (counsel) had not heard the witness state he was a parole agent because his client (appellant) had interrupted and was talking to him at that time. Id., N.T. at 79-80. Having been subsequently informed of Mr. Jefferies' testimony, regarding his occupation, counsel at that point requested a mistrial. The court indicated that, while it felt the witness' statement of his occupation may have been somewhat prejudicial and that he would have sustained an objection to the...