Com. v. Malloy

• Decision Date: 01 September 2004
• Citation: 856 A.2d 767,579 Pa. 425
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Charles MALLOY, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

856 A.2d 767

579 Pa. 425

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Charles MALLOY, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted December 3, 2002.

Decided September 1, 2004.

Frank C. Arcuri, Esq., Washington, PA, for Charles Malloy.

Sandra Ilene Thompson, Esq., Brian Ray Sinnett, Esq., Hugh S. Rebert, Esq., Amy Zapp, Esq., for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

BEFORE: CAPPY, C.J., and CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN, SAYLOR, EAKIN and BAER, JJ.

OPINION

Justice CASTILLE.

On March 23, 2000, a jury sitting before the Honorable John S. Kennedy of the Court of Common Pleas of York County convicted appellant of kidnapping,¹ conspiracy to commit murder² and murder in the first degree³ in connection with the shooting death of Arthur Irick. At the penalty hearing, the jury found a single aggravating circumstance—that the murder had been committed during the perpetration of a felony, kidnapping⁴—but no mitigating circumstances;⁵ accordingly, the jury imposed a sentence of death.⁶ On May 22, 2000, the trial court formally imposed the death sentence for first-degree murder. Additionally, appellant was sentenced to maximum consecutive sentences of ten to twenty years of imprisonment each for kidnapping and conspiracy.

Appellant appealed and on June 15, 2000, filed a timely Pa.R.A.P 1925(b) statement of matters complained of on appeal, raising ten issues. On June 5, 2001, appellant contacted his trial attorney, Richard Robinson, Esquire, advising counsel that he no longer wished counsel to represent him and that he wished to pursue ineffective assistance of counsel claims against him. On June 14, 2001, Frank C. Arcuri, Esquire, was appointed and he filed in this Court, inter alia, a petition to remand for an evidentiary hearing to establish a record for appellate review of ineffectiveness claims. The petition for remand was granted on July 27, 2001. The evidentiary hearing on appellant's ineffective assistance of counsel claims was held on October 23, 2001.

Appellant now raises eight issues of ineffective assistance of counsel and trial court error.⁷ For the following reasons, we affirm the verdict of guilt, but vacate the death sentence and remand for a new sentencing hearing.

I. Sufficiency of Evidence

Although appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, in all cases where the death penalty has been imposed, this Court conducts a self-imposed review of the sufficiency of the evidence underlying the first-degree murder conviction. See Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer, 500 Pa. 16, 454 A.2d 937, 942 n. 3 (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). In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, the Court must determine whether the evidence admitted at trial, and all reasonable references derived therefrom, when viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, support the jury's finding of all the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Spotz, 563 Pa. 269, 759 A.2d 1280 (2000) (citing Commonwealth v. Rhodes, 510 Pa. 537, 510 A.2d 1217 (1986)). Evidence is sufficient to support a conviction of first-degree murder where the Commonwealth establishes that the defendant acted with a specific intent to kill; that a human being was unlawfully killed; that the person accused was responsible for the killing; and that the killing was done with premeditation or deliberation. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(a), (d); see also Spotz, 759 A.2d at 1283; Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 528 Pa. 546, 599 A.2d 624, 626 (1991). "A specific intent to kill may be proven by circumstantial evidence; it may be inferred by the use of a deadly weapon upon a vital part of the victim's body." Spotz, 759 A.2d at 1283 (citing Commonwealth v. Bond, 539 Pa. 299, 652 A.2d 308, 311 (1995)).

Our independent review of the evidence establishes that during the late-night hours of November 7, 1996, Willie Gooding, Antoine Brown and appellant Malloy were standing outside of Crystal Brown's house on Franklin Way in the City of York. At the time, appellant was staying in Crystal's home. Three unidentified individuals dressed in sweatshirts with hoods approached appellant and his friends. Appellant began to walk away when one of the unidentified men said, "freeze," shot at appellant and then fled. Gooding, Antoine Brown and appellant then ran into Crystal's house. Crystal called the police, who responded.

A witness to this shooting, Shanika Williams, testified that she saw three people wearing "hoodies" and that she heard the gunshots. Williams further testified that she told appellant that she thought that Arthur Irick had committed the shooting. Appellant, Gooding and Antoine Brown later met up with Cory Rieara and discussed the shooting. They identified Irick and Terrence Murphy as potential shooters and that Murphy and Irick had reputations for being "stick-up kids," i.e., people who rob drug dealers.

The four individuals then went looking for Irick and Murphy. Appellant rode in a Subaru driven by Antoine Brown while Rieara rode in a blue Pontiac driven by Gooding. Appellant spotted Irick talking on the phone at a gas station on Queen Street. Both cars circled the block and pulled into the gas station next to Irick, while he was still on the phone. The four men got out of the cars, approached Irick and asked him if he knew anything abut the shooting on Franklin Way. Irick responded that he had heard something about the shooting and that he was on his way to meet someone at the Starlight building who knew what had happened and that the four men could come with him. Irick then got in the back of the Subaru. On the way to the Starlight building, the men stopped at Rieara's apartment where Rieara retrieved a .25 caliber semi-automatic hand gun and gave it to Malloy.

Upon arriving at the Starlight building, Malloy and Irick exited the Subaru, went to the door and rang the bell. Receiving no answer, appellant and Irick walked back to the cars. Appellant became angry and struck Irick with the gun and forced him into the back of the Subaru. Both cars drove approximately 10 to 15 minutes away to the Warren Street lot on the east end of town. The vehicles pulled up side by side and turned their lights off. Appellant then got out of the car and ordered Irick to also get out of the car. Irick resisted and begged Antoine Brown to help him. Rieara then came over and assured Irick that nothing was going to happen and he was just going to have to walk home. Irick then got out of the car and appellant grabbed him and brought him to the front of the car. While standing face-to-face, Malloy shot Irick four times in the head. After leaving the scene appellant disposed of the gun in the sewer.

On the morning of November 8, 1996, York City police received a report of a man lying in the parking lot on Warren Street. The police officers found Irick, deceased, lying on his back with substantial amounts of blood underneath his head. Four .25-caliber casings were recovered from around the body. An autopsy ruled the death a homicide with the cause of death as multiple gun shot wounds to the head. The victim had been shot once in the face and three times in the back of the head.

On September 23, 1998, Rieara was interviewed by the police in reference to the murder. He gave a statement to Agent William Miller and agreed to testify against appellant at trial and to take the police to the sewer where appellant had dropped the gun.⁸ Detective Dennis Williams accompanied Rieara and Agent Miller to the sewer where they recovered the gun and sent it to ballistics for analysis. At trial, ballistics officer James Rottmund testified that his analysis revealed that the shell casings found at the scene of the murder were discharged from the gun recovered by Detective Williams.

In October of 1998, the Commonwealth filed murder charges against appellant. Federal authorities filed separate criminal charges based on the same incident, however, and arrested appellant in New York and returned him to Pennsylvania. Federal plea negotiations were unconsummated and appellant was released into the Commonwealth's custody on April 8, 1999. Detective Rodney George of the York Police Department went to Harrisburg to arrest appellant. In the car traveling back from Harrisburg to York, Detective George advised appellant of his Miranda⁹ rights. During the trip, appellant and Detective George discussed why appellant had declined the plea agreement offered by the U.S. Attorney's Office. Upon arriving in York, Detective George again advised appellant of his Miranda rights and appellant indicated that he understood his rights and read and signed a waiver card.¹⁰ Appellant then gave Detective George a statement, admitting to the murder of Irick. Detective George reduced the statement to writing. Appellant stated that the statement was accurate, but refused to sign it.

The foregoing evidence is amply sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim Arthur Irick was unlawfully killed, that appellant killed him, that he acted with the specific intent to kill when he shot the victim in the head four times, and that the killing was done with premeditation and deliberation.

II. Guilt Phase Claims

A. Claims of Trial Court Error

Appellant forwards multiple claims of trial court error. First, appellant argues that the trial court erred in allowing the Commonwealth to introduce evidence of his prior bad acts. Specifically, appellant claims that the trial court erred in granting the Commonwealth's motion in limine to introduce evidence of appellant's drug activity because there was no evidence that the murder was drug-related. Appellant further argues that even if the evidence was relevant, it should not have been admitted because its prejudicial effect outweighed its probative value.

Generally, the admissibility of evidence is a matter of trial court...