Com. v. Fisher

• Decision Date: 18 April 2001
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Jonathan FISHER, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

769 A.2d 1116

564 Pa. 505

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Jonathan FISHER, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued December 6, 2000.

Decided April 18, 2001.

Jeanette Dickerson, Hatboro, for Jonathan Fisher.

Robert A. Graci, Harrisburg, Mary McNeil Killinger, Patricia Eileen Coonahan, Norristown, for Com.

Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN, and SAYLOR, JJ.

OPINION

SAYLOR, Justice.

Appellant, Jonathan Lamar Fisher, was convicted of murder in the first degree and other offenses for an incident that resulted in the death of Quentin Neal and injury to Matthew Burse. At the penalty phase of the trial, the jury returned a sentence of death. We affirm.

In the early morning hours of July 18, 1998, Rico Gonzalez was drinking a beer in his apartment in Norristown, Montgomery County, when he heard someone knocking on the main door to the apartment building. He left his apartment, opened the main door to the rooming house, and was knocked to the ground as Appellant rushed past him with a .22 caliber rifle. Appellant ran to the top of the main staircase, where he encountered Annalisa Wodarski and asked her for the location of persons whom he did not name. When she failed to answer, Appellant approached a door at the end of the hallway, opened it quietly, and peered inside. Wodarski then witnessed Appellant cock his rifle and enter the room, before she ran down the stairs and out of the building.

Appellant entered the room of Quentin Neal and Matthew Burse, which the two used as their principal place of business for their drug-dealing operations. Upon finding Neal asleep in a reclining chair, Appellant fired three shots at close range into Neal's chest. The gunshots awakened Burse, who was lying in a bed just a few feet away from Neal. Burse saw Appellant standing in front of Neal with the rifle pointed at Neal's chest. Appellant then turned to Burse, asking him for money. When Burse said that he did not have any money to give him, Appellant shot Burse in the shoulder and repeated the demand. Burse then produced sixty dollars; Appellant took the cash and fled the room. Burse raced after Appellant, attacked him, and wrestled the gun away from him, but Appellant was able to flee the scene.

A woman, who identified herself only as Colleen, telephoned the local emergency response number to report the shooting at 4:17 a.m. She described the gunman as a light-skinned African American male with freckles, who was approximately six feet tall, a description consistent with Appellant's appearance. The paramedics arrived shortly thereafter and transported Neal to the hospital by helicopter. He was pronounced dead at 5:20 a.m. A subsequent autopsy revealed that Neal died when one of the bullets pierced his heart. At the scene, Burse, who appeared to police officers to be somewhat confused and shaken, stated that a man, whom he described as a six-foot-tall, light-skinned African-American male with freckles, had first shot him and then murdered Neal. Burse was taken to the hospital and treated for a gunshot wound to his shoulder. After he received treatment, Burse was again questioned by an officer, at which time he explained that Appellant had fired upon Neal before he, Burse, had been injured.

Meanwhile, Appellant had fled to the home of his stepmother, arriving there shortly before 5:00 a.m. He informed her and his stepbrother that he had just shot someone using the stepbrother's gun, that the police were looking for him, and that he had to get away. Appellant next called his girlfriend, Nyquallah Bey, telling her he was coming by her residence to retrieve some clothing. He then telephoned Genoa Tillman, the mother of one of his children, to ask for a ride. Tillman drove Appellant from his stepmother's house to his girlfriend's residence, where he retrieved his clothing, and then to Tillman's home, where she allowed him to remain for a few days. Fearing apprehension, Appellant eventually fled to New Jersey.

On May 11, 1999, nearly ten months after the shooting, federal agents arrested Appellant at 3:20 p.m. on a fugitive warrant in Newark, New Jersey, where he was living under the assumed name of Rellie Chambers. During transport to the holding facility, without prompting from law enforcement officials, Appellant made several statements, including, "I'm glad it's over," "I was tired of looking over my shoulder," "I want to talk to someone about this," and "How did you find me?" Appellant also asked if he could return to Pennsylvania to "get this over with." The officers responded only by stating that Appellant would have to wait to speak with the detective in charge at the police station. At the station, the police advised Appellant of his constitutional rights.¹ Appellant signed a card provided by the police that detailed the Miranda warnings, indicating that he understood his rights and wished to remain silent. Appellant signed the card with the name Rellie Chambers and stated that he would not talk to the police until he had spoken with his current girlfriend. The officers complied with Appellant's request to telephone this woman, and when Appellant was unable to reach her using the police station telephone, an officer offered Appellant the use of his cellular telephone. Appellant then unsuccessfully attempted to reach his girlfriend at home and at work and left a message instructing her to call him.

After these calls, Appellant admitted to using an assumed name and stated his desire to talk with a detective, asking that the card he had previously signed, which indicated that he did not wish to speak with the police, be destroyed. A detective informed Appellant that the first card could not be destroyed, but that Appellant could execute a second card if he now wanted to waive his rights. Appellant agreed and was again given the Miranda warnings; he then executed a written waiver of his rights, which he signed using the name Jonathan Fisher.

A detective began questioning Appellant at 5:25 p.m. During the course of the interrogation, the detective asked Appellant a series of questions regarding whether he had informed his stepmother and stepbrother that he had killed the victim. In response, Appellant laid his head on the table and said, "I'm a mother f____g murderer and they said I did it." When Appellant signed his statement at 7:29 p.m., the interrogation concluded.

Although the Newark police attempted to find a court to conduct Appellant's extradition hearing on the evening of May 11, 1999, they were unable to do so because the courts closed for the day within an hour of Appellant's arrest. They successfully located a judge the next morning, and Appellant, before the New Jersey Superior Court, waived an extradition hearing on the afternoon of May 12, 1999. A detective with the Montgomery County Police Department arranged to assume custody of Appellant the following morning, May 13, and return him to Pennsylvania. The officer retrieved Appellant from New Jersey at approximately 9:00 a.m. the next morning, and Appellant was arraigned that afternoon in Montgomery County.

Prior to Appellant's preliminary hearing, Wodarski, an eyewitness, and Burse, the surviving victim, were shown a photographic array of suspects matching their descriptions of the assailant. Both identified Appellant as the man responsible for the shooting. In preparation for a traditional line-up, Appellant was led through the prison where he was being detained and was asked to select several men whom he thought resembled himself to be included in the line-up. Appellant's trial counsel then reviewed Appellant's choices, approved three of them, and made two substitutions. During this line-up, both Wodarski and Burse again identified Appellant as the shooter without hesitation. Following both of these identifications and immediately prior to Appellant's preliminary hearing, Burse briefly witnessed Appellant in handcuffs being escorted by the police.

Appellant filed an omnibus pre-trial motion, seeking the suppression of the statements he made to the police while being transported to a holding facility following his arrest in New Jersey, his statement to the detective during his interrogation, and the identifications made by Burse and Wodarski. The trial court denied the motion.

At trial, Rico Gonzalez and Wodarski identified Appellant as the assailant. When cross-examined, both admitted that they had used illegal drugs in the days or hours preceding the murder, but denied that it affected their ability to accurately recall the event. Burse testified that it was Appellant who had shot him, and that he had ample opportunity to view his attacker when the two had struggled for the gun. Upon vigorous cross-examination, Burse also denied that his drug use affected his recollection and attributed the inconsistencies in his statements to police to the shock he was experiencing after witnessing the murder.

Appellant's stepmother and stepbrother next testified that Appellant had admitted his involvement in the crime to them. Furthermore, Nyquallah Bey and Genoa Tillman provided evidence of their part in Appellant's flight from the police. Appellant then sought to prevent Bey from testifying that, during a telephone conversation several months after the shooting, Appellant had told her that he had shot Neal because Neal had "burnt" him in a drug deal, claiming that this impermissibly introduced evidence of his prior bad acts. The trial court denied the motion, allowing Bey to testify as to the conversation. A forensic pathologist testified that Neal had died as a result of a gunshot wound to the chest. Finally, the police officers testified as to the statements Appellant made during his transport to the police station and his interrogation.

Appellant was convicted of the first-degree murder of Neal, the robbery of Burse, burglary, aggravated assault upon Burse, and possession of an instrument of crime....