Com. v. Paddy

• Decision Date: 08 July 2002
• Citation: 569 Pa. 47,800 A.2d 294
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Donyell PADDY, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

800 A.2d 294

569 Pa. 47

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Donyell PADDY, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued October 15, 2001.

Decided July 8, 2002.

Jules Epstein, Philadelphia, for Donyell A. Paddy.

Catherine Marshall, Philadelphia, Robert A. Graci, Harrisburg, for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

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

OPINION

SAYLOR, Justice.

This is the direct appeal of Donyell Paddy from the sentence of death imposed following his conviction of the first-degree murder of Lashawn Whaley.

According to the evidence offered at trial, the events leading up to Lashawn's murder began on January 15, 1991, when two men were shot to death as they played basketball at the Panati Playground at 22nd and Lippincott Streets in Philadelphia. Lashawn, standing across the street, witnessed the shootings. Although initially reluctant to cooperate with the police, Lashawn eventually gave a formal statement identifying Paddy as one of the two men who had done the shooting. Lashawn knew Paddy from her neighborhood and also identified him in a photo array. Explaining her initial unwillingness to identify Paddy as the shooter, Lashawn asserted in her statement to the police, given on May 15, 1991, that "I knew it was him from the beginning, but I was scared. I still am." An arrest warrant was issued for Paddy on June 11, 1991, and he turned himself in to the police several weeks later.

Lashawn was issued a subpoena to testify at Paddy's trial, scheduled to begin on September 14, 1992. On that date, trial was continued until Monday, September 21, at the request of the defense, and a new subpoena was issued for Lashawn. Lashawn's statement, which had been the subject of a protective order, was disclosed to the defense several days later. When a detective contacted Lashawn over the weekend to remind her of the upcoming trial, Lashawn informed him that she would not attend, adding, "You can tell Judge O'Keefe he can kiss my ass." On September 21, Lashawn failed to appear. As jury selection proceeded, the police searched unsuccessfully for her. On September 24, with jury selection completed and Lashawn still at large, the Commonwealth was forced to nolle pros the charges against Paddy.

After the police finally located Lashawn in Philadelphia on November 2, 1992, they learned that friends of Paddy, including Lashawn's cousin, Freddy Murphy, and a man known as Sadeeq, had, at Paddy's behest, taken Lashawn to a Super 8 Motel in College Park, Maryland, and promised her $5,000. Numerous telephone calls were made from their room at the motel to persons in Philadelphia, including Stephen Blount, another of Paddy's friends. Blount attended the aborted trial and apparently kept those in Maryland abreast of developments, as Lashawn and her companions returned to Philadelphia immediately after the charges had been nolle prossed. Lashawn explained to the police that she had left the state because she was afraid that Paddy or his friends would harm her or her family if she testified against him. Nevertheless, she again agreed to testify, the charges against Paddy were reinstated, and trial was scheduled to begin on November 5.

By this time, however, Paddy could not be found. On the basis of information suggesting that Paddy had fled to Maryland, a federal fugitive warrant was issued charging him with flight to avoid prosecution, and the joint fugitive task force of the Philadelphia police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted an intensive manhunt. Although Paddy could not be located, it became apparent that he had not left Philadelphia. At one point investigators spotted Paddy driving a white 1988 Ford Mustang, which was later determined to have been titled to a fictitious name. Freddy Murphy, Lashawn's cousin, encountered Paddy on the street, where Paddy told him that Lashawn had been "running her f______ mouth" about him and "saying things she shouldn't say." Paddy informed Murphy that someone should warn Lashawn "before somebody rides up on her and puts some holes in her." In a later encounter, Paddy asked Murphy if he had conveyed a warning to Lashawn; Murphy admitted that he had not. On April 26, 1993, while in the Trism Trail Bar, Paddy told his cousin, Shawn Roussaw, that if Lashawn would not "cooperate," she "would have to go." On that occasion, according to Roussaw, Paddy was disguised as a woman, wearing a long wig, a dress, and a beige coat.

Two days later, on Wednesday, April 28, 1993, Roussaw was ingesting cocaine at a playground at 22nd and Lippincott Streets,¹ less than a block from the home of Lashawn's cousin, Sharon Whaley, when he noticed a blue, two-door automobile go by. Although he did not recognize the driver of the car, Roussaw, who had known Paddy all his life, recognized him as the passenger, wearing a wig, sunglasses, and tan overcoat. As the car went past the playground, Paddy looked at Roussaw and smiled. The car matched the description of a vehicle that Sharon Whaley had seen parked near her home the previous two days. On both occasions, she had recognized the driver as a man she had dated named Kevin Green; the passenger was, she thought, a woman with long hair, wearing a baseball cap.

Lashawn had left her mother's home earlier that day to visit Sharon. As she was leaving, Lashawn was heard by her sister Rochelle telling her mother "that if anything happened to her, she loved her." As the blue car was driven past Roussaw and toward Sharon's home, Lashawn and several relatives, including her sister Tara and Sharon, were standing outside the house. The car stopped a short distance away, and, as the driver of the car shouted, "Get the f___ out, do it, do it," Paddy— described by witnesses as wearing a wig, dress, coat, baseball cap, and dark glasses, and holding a paper towel over his face from chin to nose—got out of the car, aimed a handgun at Lashawn, and fired repeatedly. One shot narrowly missed Tara; six other shots, including one that lodged just beneath the eye, struck and fatally injured Lashawn.

Although Paddy and his accomplice fled the scene of the shooting, the blue, two-door car was found several blocks away. Both Sharon and Tara identified the car as the one from which the shooter had emerged. A thumbprint and palm print on the car's exterior were determined to be Paddy's, and crime-scene personnel found, on the passenger side of the vehicle, four long strands of synthetic fiber of the type used to make wigs. Paddy was arrested on May 14, 1993, and charged with Lashawn's murder.

In April of 1995, Paddy went to trial on the charges arising from both the Panati Playground shootings and Lashawn's murder. Prior to trial, the trial court (Savitt, J.), in response to defense counsel's motion in limine, ruled that Lashawn's statement to the police identifying Paddy as the perpetrator of the Panati Playground homicides would be admitted, as redacted, for the sole purpose of showing that Lashawn was killed because she had witnessed a crime. The trial court specifically stated that Lashawn's statements concerning threats made to her were inadmissible, being hearsay not within any exception. Alibi witnesses testified on Paddy's behalf, as did three witnesses— Melvin Robinson, Zachary Kemp, and Kim Collins—who refuted various aspects of Shawn Roussaw's testimony. The proceeding ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.

Later that year, Paddy went to trial again, this time for Lashawn's murder only. Although the trial court (Latrone, J.) ruled prior to trial that Paddy could present alibi evidence for the Panati Playground shootings, Paddy chose not to do so. Also decided prior to trial was the admissibility of Lashawn's statement to police concerning those shootings. Paddy's attorney, Janis Smarro, Esq. ("trial counsel"), asked the trial court to admit the statement only to the extent necessary to establish that Lashawn had witnessed the event, been interviewed by police, and identified Paddy as the shooter. Trial counsel was not concerned about Lashawn's statements expressing her fear of Paddy, which counsel acknowledged were admissible, but about Lashawn's detailed description of the shootings, which, if admitted, would put counsel "in the position of defending the underlying [Panati Playground] homicides." The court granted trial counsel's request to the extent of excluding Lashawn's naming of other witnesses to the shootings.

The Commonwealth's witnesses against Paddy included: various police officers, who testified to the essential facts of the Panati Playground murders, Lashawn's statement concerning that event, Lashawn's failure to appear in court and the ensuing search for her, the subsequent search for Paddy, and the investigation of Lashawn's murder; Lashawn's sisters, Tara and Rochelle Whaley, and cousin, Sharon Whaley, who recounted the events leading up to and immediately following the shooting of Lashawn; Shawn Roussaw, via his preliminary hearing testimony, as he had died before the earlier trial; and Freddy Murphy.

On direct examination, Murphy testified as to his cooperation with Paddy in the matter of Lashawn's trip to Maryland; Lashawn's statement to him that she feared for her life because she had seen Paddy commit the Panati Playground shootings; and an encounter with Paddy two days after returning from Maryland, during which Paddy thanked him for his help. On cross-examination, Murphy conceded that, at the time of the trip to Maryland, he was using numerous drugs, including "cocaine, dope, dust, weed, drinking a little bit, [cough] syrup, various drugs"; when the police took his statement, he was in prison awaiting trial on charges that included robbery and aggravated assault; he was subsequently allowed to plead guilty to simple assault; he was never arrested in connection with Lashawn's flight to Maryland; he was awaiting sentence on probation violation...