Com. v. Karenbauer

• Citation: 715 A.2d 1086,552 Pa. 420
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Peter Michael KARENBAUER, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 22 July 1998
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Page 1086

715 A.2d 1086

552 Pa. 420

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Peter Michael KARENBAUER, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted March 10, 1998.

Decided July 22, 1998.

Randall T. Hetrick, for appellant.

William Panella, New Castle, Robert A. Graci, Harrisburg, for Com., appellee.

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

OPINION

SAYLOR, Justice.

Appellant, Peter Michael Karenbauer, was convicted of murder in the first degree by a jury in the Court of Common Pleas of Lawrence County. The victim of the crime was eight-year-old Lacy Johnson, daughter of the woman with whom Karenbauer lived. At the penalty phase of the trial, the jury returned a sentence of death. Following the filing and denial of Karenbauer's post-sentence motions nunc pro tunc, this direct appeal ensued. We affirm.

The record reveals that on July 16, 1995, Karenbauer, accompanied by Lacy, drove Nita Johnson, Lacy's mother, to her place of employment and then returned home. When Karenbauer arrived to pick up Nita at the end of her shift, he told her that Lacy was staying with her maternal grandparents and that he would take her (Nita) out for the evening. Karenbauer and Nita spent the night in a motel.

Returning to their home the next morning, both Karenbauer and Nita fell asleep in the downstairs living room. Nita's son, Michael Johnson, arrived around noon and told his mother that her parents, with whom he often stayed, were outside in their van. At that point Karenbauer told Nita that in fact Lacy was not with her grandparents but rather that he had allowed her to leave with her father, Nita's husband. Fearing that her husband had kidnapped Lacy, Nita went outside to talk with her parents. When she returned to the house, Karenbauer was no longer there. Nita and her son went upstairs. As Nita was looking out a bedroom window, trying to spot Karenbauer, Michael said that there were blankets under the bed. The "blankets" turned out to be Lacy's body, wrapped in a blanket and dressed in wet, blood-soaked clothing. A knife handle was found on top of the bed, and the knife blade, which had apparently been snapped off, was later found between the mattress and box springs in the master bedroom. In addition, there were bloodstains on the floor and walls of the room in which Lacy's body was found, as well as in the bathtub.

Following the discovery of the body, police officers searched for Karenbauer. New Castle Police Chief Charles Abraham testified that as he and Lieutenant Gagliardo were driving through the neighborhood, they spotted a man who fit Karenbauer's description, and Chief Abraham asked, "[A]re you Mike?" Karenbauer answered, "[Y]es, I know, I murdered somebody." Karenbauer then got into the patrol car and was read his Miranda rights. When asked whether he wanted to tell what had happened, Karenbauer replied that Lacy "got mouthy" and that he stabbed her "a lot" of times and then held her under water.

At the police station, Detective Sergeant Thomas Sansone gave Karenbauer a second Miranda warning. Karenbauer then made a statement, which was reduced to writing and signed, and which read in pertinent part as follows

Me and Lacy went swimming in our pool in the backyard. Me and Lacy got into an argument in the swimming pool. We went into the house and were still arguing. We went upstairs to change clothes. The next thing I remember was that I was holding Lacy under water in the bathtub. I saw blood covering Lacy and the water was bloody also. I wiped the blood off of my arms with a towel. I don't remember stabbing Lacy but I saw her bleeding from her chest area while I had her in the tub. I left Lacy in the tub and I got changed, and left the house....

Early the next morning, July 17, 1995, [Nita and I] left the motel and went home to Morris Street. I went upstairs to the bathroom and I saw Lacy still lying in the tub. The water was out of the tub and there was blood all over. I got a blanket from Mike's room and put the blanket on the floor and took Lacy from the tub and put her in the blanket. When I picked Lacy up, blood ran all over the floor. I took Lacy into Mike's room and put her under the bed. I went back to the bathroom and cleaned the blood up. I took the towels and rags and put them under Mike's bed. I found a knife blade in a pool of blood in Mike's room. I picked the blade up and covered the pool of blood with a basket. I took the knife blade to my bedroom and put it under my mattress.... I then took a shower to get the blood off of me.

Karenbauer's confession was read into evidence at trial; Karenbauer did not testify during the guilt phase of the proceeding.

A Commonwealth witness, Detective Sergeant Cynthia Eve of the New Castle Police, testified that during a recess in a pre-trial proceeding she heard Karenbauer, who was in a private room about 15 feet from her, shouting "I did it, I don't know why I did it, nobody can tell me why I did it.... They should just shoot me." She described Karenbauer as crying and upset.

According to Dr. James Smith, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, Lacy sustained 18 knife wounds, some of which were defensive in nature, and none of which was fatal by itself. The cause of death, in Dr. Smith's opinion, was the combination of hemorrhage from the multiple knife wounds, partial asphyxia caused by the collapse of the right lung as the result of a stab wound, and asphyxia caused by drowning. Forensic testimony established that the blood on the knife blade found in the master bedroom carried a genetic marker that was consistent with Lacy's blood.

Karenbauer did not deny that he killed Lacy. Instead, he presented a diminished capacity defense, asserting that he could not be guilty of murder in the first degree because he had been unable to form a specific intent to kill.

To support his claim, Karenbauer offered the testimony of Dr. Lawson Bernstein, a forensic neuropsychiatrist. Dr. Bernstein opined that Karenbauer suffered from moderate mental retardation, a history of injury to the frontal lobes of the brain, and severe depression, all of which combined to diminish severely his capacity to premeditate, deliberate, and form a specific criminal intent.

Dr. Bernstein's opinion was challenged by the Commonwealth's expert, Dr. Christine Martone, a staff psychiatrist at the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh and a specialist in the treatment of mentally ill offenders. In her opinion, Karenbauer's mental retardation was mild rather than moderate, his diagnosis was that of borderline personality disorder, and, at the time in question, he was able to form a specific intent to kill.

The jury convicted Karenbauer of murder in the first degree. At the penalty hearing, the Commonwealth offered two aggravating circumstances: 1) the crime had been committed by means of torture; and 2) the victim of the crime was under the age of 12. As possible mitigating circumstances, Karenbauer offered the following: 1) the substantial impairment of his capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law; 2) his age at the time of the crime (25); and 3) other evidence regarding his character and record, including his learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, mental illness, and remorse, as well as his broken family, his stepfather's drug and alcohol problems, and the physical and mental abuse that he had sustained at the hands of his stepfather.

The jury found two mitigating circumstances (mild mental retardation, physical and mental abuse) and both aggravating circumstances proffered by the Commonwealth. Finding that the latter outweighed the former, they returned a sentence of death.

SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE

We address, first, Karenbauer's claim that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction of first degree murder. As this is a capital case, we are required to review the sufficiency of the evidence. Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer, 500 Pa. 16, 26 n. 3, 454 A.2d 937, 942 n. 3 (1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 970, 103 S.Ct. 2444, 77 L.Ed.2d 1327 (1983). The applicable standard of review is whether, viewing all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, a jury could find every element of the crime to have been established beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Edmiston, 535 Pa. 210, 221, 634 A.2d 1078, 1083 (1993).

Murder of the first degree is a criminal homicide committed by an intentional killing. 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(a). To prove the offense, the Commonwealth must demonstrate that the defendant acted with a specific intent to kill. Commonwealth v. Auker, 545 Pa. 521, 539, 681 A.2d 1305, 1315 (1996). The Commonwealth must show: 1) that a human being has unlawfully been killed; 2) that the defendant did the killing; and 3) that the killing was done in an intentional, deliberate, and premeditated manner. Id.

Karenbauer does not deny that Lacy was unlawfully killed or that he killed her. He argues, rather, that he and Lacy enjoyed a very good relationship and that the Commonwealth provided no evidence to show premeditation or deliberation on his part prior to the moment of Lacy's death. Therefore, Karenbauer contends, the Commonwealth did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed the specific intent necessary to sustain a conviction of first degree murder. At most, Karenbauer argues, the Commonwealth's evidence supported a verdict of murder in the third degree.

Karenbauer's argument is without merit. The specific intent to kill can be inferred from the defendant's use of a deadly weapon upon a vital part of the victim's body. Commonwealth v. Hall, 549 Pa. 269, 282, 701 A.2d 190, 196 (1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 1534, 140 L.Ed.2d 684 (1998); Commonwealth v. Rios, 546 Pa. 271, 281, 684 A.2d 1025, 1030 (1996), cert. denied, --- U.S.----, 117 S.Ct. 1825, 137 L.Ed.2d 1032 (...