Com. v. Hawkins

• Decision Date: 17 September 1997
• Citation: 701 A.2d 492,549 Pa. 352
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Thomas W. HAWKINS, Jr., Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 492

701 A.2d 492

549 Pa. 352

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Thomas W. HAWKINS, Jr., Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Oct. 16, 1996.

Decided Sept. 17, 1997.

[549 Pa. 364] Michael G. Floyd, Penllyn, for T. Hawkins.

Bruce L. Castor, Jr., Patricia E. Coonahan, Norristown, Robert A. Graci, Harrisburg, for the Com.

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

OPINION

CASTILLE, Justice.

On June 7, 1993, this Court reversed appellant's judgment of sentence of death in connection with the June 4, 1989 death of the victim, Andrea Nicole Thomas, and remanded the matter for a new trial. ¹ After conducting a new trial, the jury again found appellant guilty of first degree murder ² and indecent assault. ³ Following the penalty hearing on August 25, 1994, the jury found one aggravating circumstance ⁴ and no mitigating circumstances, and, as required by the law, set the penalty at death. ⁵ After the jury set the penalty, the trial court immediately imposed the jury's sentence of death. ⁶ On January 30, 1995, appellant's post-trial motions were denied by the trial court. This direct appeal followed. For the reasons expressed herein, we affirm the judgment of sentence imposed by the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County.

I. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE

As is required in all cases where the death penalty has been imposed, this Court must conduct a review of the sufficiency of the evidence. Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer, 500 Pa. 16, 26, 454 A.2d 937, 942 (1982), cert denied, 461 U.S. 970, 103 S.Ct. 2444, 77 L.Ed.2d 1327 (1983), reh'g denied, 463 U.S. 1236, 104 S.Ct. 31, 77 L.Ed.2d 1452 (1983). When reviewing a sufficiency of the evidence claim, an appellate court, viewing all the evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as the verdict winner, must determine whether the evidence was sufficient to enable the fact finder to find that all of the elements of the offenses were established beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Burgos, 530 Pa. 473, 476, 610 A.2d 11, 13 (1992). Using this standard, the record below establishes the following evidence:

On the morning of June 4, 1989, the victim, a fourteen (14) year old girl, was at the home where she lived with her grandparents (who were also appellant's parents) and an aunt in Stowe, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Sometime between 7:45 a.m. and 8:15 a.m., the victim was left home alone after her grandparents had earlier left for a vacation in Florida and her aunt had left for work.

Appellant admitted to the police that he arrived at the victim's house at approximately 9:00 a.m. in order to pick-up the keys to his father's automobile. When appellant arrived at the house, the doors were locked. Thus, appellant proceeded to climb through a window in order to gain access to the house. Appellant admitted to the police that once inside he found the victim inside the house. Appellant also admitted that he played and wrestled with the victim because she had teased appellant about a split in his pants and a hole in his underwear. Appellant told the police that he left the house at approximately 9:45 a.m. to go to his place of employment in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The manager of the bagel shop where appellant was employed in King of Prussia testified that although appellant was scheduled to begin work at 10:30 a.m. that morning, he did not arrive for work until 1:30 p.m.

At approximately 5:00 p.m. on that same day, the victim's aunt returned home from work. The aunt noticed that the front door was unlocked and that the living room was in disarray. After searching the house, the aunt discovered the victim's naked body and called the police.

The police arrived at the house shortly thereafter. The police observed that the victim's body was naked except for a brassiere pulled up over one of her breasts. Upon searching the house, the police observed that the living room was in disarray with various kitchen items strewn about and that there was a plastic garbage bag on the living room floor. The police also found the set of car keys that the appellant claimed were the reason that he went to the house. The black and white dress that the victim was wearing that morning, the victim's bloody underwear, and various blood and fecal stains were also found at the scene.

A forensic pathologist's examination of the victim revealed that the victim's body had vaginal bruises, scrapes and tears consistent with sexual penetration. The pathologist also concluded that the victim's death was caused by strangulation by ligature consistent with that of a telephone extension cord found inside the house near where the victim was killed. The pathologist also noted that the victim had three stab wounds in her back which were consistent with a two-pronged fork found by investigators in the bathroom of the house. The pathologist concluded that the manner of death was a homicide and that death occurred sometime between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon on June 4, 1989.

Certain items of physical evidence removed from the scene were processed which implicated appellant in the murder. Specifically, latent fingerprints were found on the plastic garbage bag found in the living room and those fingerprints were determined to match those of appellant. Also, the police recovered a black fiber from the dress the victim was wearing that day. A Federal Bureau of Investigations Agent testified that the black fiber found on the dress was consistent with the thread on the pair of black pants that appellant admitted wearing the day of the murder. Moreover, samples of saliva taken from the victim's breasts matched a saliva sample taken from appellant. A federal agent testified that the saliva which matched that of appellant statistically could have only belonged to one (1) out of every one hundred and forty-three (143) African Americans and one (1) out of every five hundred (500) Caucasians.

On September 21, 1989, by coincidence, police from another county were executing a search warrant at appellant's home in connection with an unrelated matter and the police observed eighty one detective magazines and books concerning investigative techniques used in crimes. The magazines and books had numerous pages folded and textual highlights. This evidence was turned over to Montgomery County detectives and introduced at appellant's trial by the Commonwealth in order to explain the scarcity of forensic evidence at the murder scene.

Finally, Malcolm Tucker and Michael Murphy, ⁷ two inmates who were incarcerated with appellant, testified at trial that appellant told them that the victim often teased him sexually and that according to appellant, "[s]he asked for it, so I choked her and f----d her brains out." The two inmates also testified that appellant told them that the police found his detective magazines with markings and that he marked the magazines so that he could profit from the mistakes made by others while he was committing crimes.

In first degree murder cases, the Commonwealth must prove that the defendant acted with a specific intent to kill, that a human being was unlawfully killed, that the person accused did the killing, and that the killing was done with deliberation. 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(d); Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 528 Pa. 546, 550, 599 A.2d 624, 626 (1991). When there is no direct evidence of intent to kill, the fact-finder may glean the necessary intent from the act itself and from all surrounding circumstances. Commonwealth v. Meredith, 490 Pa. 303, 311, 416 A.2d 481, 485 (1980). Specific intent to kill can be proven where the defendant knowingly applies deadly force to the person of another. Id. Death caused by strangulation is sufficient to infer the specific intent required for a conviction of first degree murder. See Commonwealth v. Simmons, 541 Pa. 211, 227-28, 662 A.2d 621, 628-29 (1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1128, 116 S.Ct. 945, 133 L.Ed.2d 870 (1996) (evidence of manual strangulation of victim sufficient to establish specific intent required for first-degree murder).

Here, the evidence presented at trial showed that appellant himself admitted being in the victim's house during the time of the murder. Also, the physical evidence seized from the murder scene such as the fiber on the victim's dress, the fingerprint on the plastic garbage bag, and the saliva evidence from the victim's breast inculpated appellant with the murder. Moreover, two inmates incarcerated with appellant testified about incriminating statements appellant made to them admitting the murder. Finally, the victim's body showed that her death was caused by strangulation with a telephone extension wire similar to one found in the victim's house. Accordingly, we find that this evidence is sufficient to establish that appellant acted with malice aforethought and with the specific intent to kill the victim. See Simmons, 541 Pa. at 228-29, 662 A.2d at 630 (circumstantial evidence which established that defendant had access to the victim's home; was placed at the victim's home during the time of the murder; was linked to the murder scene by physical evidence; and told others of the murder was sufficient to support guilty verdict against defendant for first degree murder).

II. WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE

Appellant contends that his conviction was against the weight of the evidence because of conflicts and inconsistencies in the testimony and the evidence presented at trial. Inconsistencies noted by appellant include: (1) that the presence of his fingerprints at the crime scene would not be unusual since the evidence came from his parent's house; (2) appellant's forensic expert testified that there was a mixture of saliva on the victim's left breast which would indicate that appellant was not involved with the crime; and (3) appellant's two alibi witnesses established that appellant was at his Philadelphia residence within a...