Com. v. Holder

• Decision Date: 22 August 2002
• Citation: 569 Pa. 474,805 A.2d 499
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Charles F. HOLDER, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

805 A.2d 499

569 Pa. 474

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Charles F. HOLDER, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued November 15, 2001.

Decided August 22, 2002.

Jeanette D. Dickerson, Hatboro, for Charles F. Holder.

Patricia Eileen Coonahan, Norristown, for Com.

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

OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

Justice NIGRO.

Appellant Charles F. Holder appeals from the Superior Court's order affirming his judgment of sentence for rape, simple assault, and aggravated assault. For the reasons that follow, we reverse and remand the matter to the Superior Court.

On August 1, 1998, Mary Wright reported to Hatboro police that Appellant had raped her in her apartment. Appellant was subsequently arrested and charged with rape, simple assault, aggravated assault, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, reckless endangerment, and harassment. In light of the fact that Appellant was on probation for a prior criminal conviction, he was sent to prison awaiting a probation revocation hearing, i.e., a Gagnon hearing. See Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 93 S.Ct. 1756, 36 L.Ed.2d 656 (1973)

.

During his Gagnon hearing on November 17, 1998, Appellant tried to introduce evidence of a prior false rape allegation by Wright. Specifically, Appellant wanted to offer evidence that a week prior to this incident, after a night of drinking, Wright awoke in the middle of the night and asked Michael Hunter, "Did you rape me last night?" Appellant intimated that he wanted to use Wright's prior rape allegation to discredit her testimony that she trusted Appellant because he was Hunter's friend, by showing that she actually did not even trust Hunter. The Gagnon hearing judge, Judge William Carpenter, ruled that this evidence was inadmissible, citing the rape shield law and hearsay rules. Judge Carpenter subsequently revoked Appellant's probation.

After Appellant's trial for the rape and assault of Wright was scheduled, Appellant filed a pretrial motion in limine on April 12, 1999, seeking a preliminary ruling on the admissibility of certain evidence in his upcoming trial. Specifically, Appellant asked the trial court to allow him to admit the same evidence that Judge Carpenter had previously excluded at the Gagnon hearing, i.e., Wright's previous allegation that Hunter had raped her. On December 28, 1999, the trial judge, Judge Paul Tressler, issued an order stating that Judge Carpenter's earlier ruling precluded a contradictory ruling and, therefore, that Appellant was collaterally estopped from relitigating the identical issue during trial.

On March 24, 2000, a jury found Appellant guilty of rape, simple assault, and aggravated assault.¹ The trial court sentenced him to a term of eight years and six months to twenty years in prison for the rape conviction, and to a concurrent term of six to twelve years in prison for the aggravated assault conviction. These sentences were to be served consecutive to the sentence Appellant was then serving for violating his probation.

On appeal to the Superior Court, Appellant argued that the trial court erred in denying Appellant's motion to allow the admission of Wright's prior rape allegation into evidence. See Commonwealth v. Holder, 765 A.2d 1156 (Pa.Super.2001)

. The Superior Court concluded that Appellant's claim essentially challenged the trial court's decision that Judge Carpenter's ruling on the admissibility of Wright's prior rape allegation at the Gagnon hearing collaterally estopped the trial court from ruling on the issue. Id. at 1159. In reviewing this claim, the Superior Court determined that the Gagnon hearing judge and the trial judge were of equal jurisdiction and that the issue regarding the admissibility of Wright's prior rape allegation had been finally litigated at Appellant's Gagnon hearing. Id. at 1160. Accordingly, the Superior Court held that the trial court had properly ruled that it was collaterally estopped from ruling on the evidentiary issue, and the Superior Court affirmed Appellant's judgment of sentence. Id.

Appellant filed a Petition for Allowance of Appeal to this Court. We granted allocatur to determine whether the trial court properly ruled that Wright's prior rape allegation was inadmissible because Appellant was collaterally estopped from relitigating that issue, and if collateral estoppel was in fact properly applied, whether the Superior Court erred in failing to review the evidentiary ruling on its merits.² For the reasons that follow, we hold that the trial court properly applied collateral estoppel, but that the Superior Court did err in failing to review the evidentiary ruling on its merits.

The doctrine of collateral estoppel is a part of the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against double jeopardy, which was made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. See Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 437, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1191, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970)

(citing Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969)); Commonwealth v. Brown, 503 Pa. 514, 469 A.2d 1371, 1372 (1983). The phrase "collateral estoppel," also known as "issue preclusion," simply means that when an issue of law, evidentiary fact, or ultimate fact has been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot be litigated again between the same parties in any future lawsuit.³,⁴

Ashe, 397 U.S. at 443,

90 S.Ct. at 1194; see RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTS, § 27 cmt. c (1982). Collateral estoppel does not automatically bar a subsequent prosecution, but rather, it bars redetermination in a second prosecution of those issues necessarily determined between the parties in a first proceeding that has become a final judgment. Commonwealth v. Smith, 518 Pa. 15, 540 A.2d 246, 251 (1988) (emphasis in original).

Traditionally, Pennsylvania courts have applied the collateral estoppel doctrine only if the following threshold requirements are met: 1) the issues in the two actions are sufficiently similar and sufficiently material to justify invoking the doctrine; 2) the issue was actually litigated in the first action; and 3) a final judgment on the specific issue in question was issued in the first action.⁵ See id.; Clark v. Troutman, 509 Pa. 336, 502 A.2d 137, 139 (1985)

; Commonwealth v. Hude, 492 Pa. 600, 425 A.2d 313, 320 (1980) (plurality opinion). An issue is actually litigated when it is properly raised, submitted for determination, and then actually determined. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTS § 13 cmt. d. For collateral estoppel purposes, a final judgment includes any prior adjudication of an issue in another action that is sufficiently firm to be accorded conclusive effect. Id. § 13 cmt. g.

Applying the threshold requirements to the instant case, it is clear that the lower courts properly determined that collateral estoppel applies. First, the issues in the two actions were sufficiently similar. At both the Gagnon hearing and the criminal trial, Appellant sought to admit the same evidence of Wright's prior rape allegation. Moreover, the admissibility of the prior rape allegation was sufficiently material given that Appellant sought to introduce the evidence as a means of impeaching Wright's testimony, which in both proceedings was the sole evidentiary basis presented by the Commonwealth to prove the rape and assault. Furthermore, the record firmly establishes that the issue of the admissibility of Wright's prior rape allegation was actually and finally litigated before Judge Carpenter, who after a full hearing precluded Appellant from admitting any evidence of the allegation. Accordingly, we agree with the lower courts that all three of the threshold requirements were met.

Appellant argues, however, that collateral estoppel should not apply in a criminal trial subsequent to a Gagnon hearing, regardless of whether the threshold requirements have been satisfied.⁶ He asserts that probation revocation hearings and criminal trials have certain procedural dissimilarities, which would be unfairly concealed by the hypertechnical application of collateral estoppel. Appellant notes that during a criminal trial, the defendant is afforded a presumption of innocence and the prosecution bears the strong burden of proving its case "beyond a reasonable doubt," whereas in a Gagnon hearing, the prosecution's burden has been reduced to a mere "preponderance of the evidence." See Brown, 469 A.2d at 1373-74

. Thus, Appellant argues that applying an interlocutory ruling in a Gagnon hearing to a subsequent criminal trial lessens the prosecution's burden at trial by not forcing the prosecution to prove every element of its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Appellant also asserts that the ultimate issues that the court must determine in Gagnon hearings and criminal trials are distinct. Appellant essentially argues that in a criminal trial, the issue is whether the defendant is guilty of the crime charged, whereas in a probation violation hearing the focus is on whether the conduct of the probationer indicates that probation has proven to be an effective vehicle to accomplish rehabilitation and a sufficient deterrent against future antisocial conduct. See Commonwealth v. Kates, 452 Pa. 102, 305 A.2d 701, 708 (1973).

Clearly, Appellant is correct that there are articulable differences between probation revocation hearings and criminal trials. Probation, like parole, is not part of the criminal prosecution, and thus the full panoply of rights due a defendant in a criminal trial does not apply to probation revocation. See Gagnon, 411 U.S. at 781,

93 S.Ct. at 1759. Probation is a suspended sentence of incarceration served upon such terms and conditions as imposed by the sentencing court. Commonwealth v. Walton, 483 Pa. 588, 397 A.2d 1179, 1184 (1979). Probation revocation requires a truncated hearing by the sentencing court to determine whether probation remains rehabilitative...