Com. v. Sepulveda

• Decision Date: 19 August 2004
• Citation: 855 A.2d 783,579 Pa. 217
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Manuel SEPULVEDA, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

855 A.2d 783

579 Pa. 217

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Manuel SEPULVEDA, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued December 4, 2003.

Decided August 19, 2004.

Ellen C. Schurdak, Marshall E. Anders, Stroudsburg, for Manuel Marcus Sepulveda.

Donald M. Leeth, Amy Zapp, Harrisburg, Elmer D. Christine, Jr., Stroudsburg, for Com.

Before CAPPY, C.J., CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN, SAYLOR, EAKIN, LAMB, JJ.

OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

Justice NIGRO.

In this capital case, Appellant Manuel Sepulveda appeals from the sentences of death imposed by the Court of Common Pleas of Monroe County. A jury found Appellant guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree, two counts of aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, unlawful restraint, and tampering with or fabricating evidence. Following a penalty hearing, the jury determined that the one aggravating circumstance it found with respect to each murder¹ outweighed the two mitigating circumstances it also found with respect to each murder.² Accordingly, the jury returned a sentence of death for each of the murder convictions,³ and on January 27, 2003, the trial court formally imposed two death sentences against Appellant. After the trial court denied Appellant's post-sentence motion, Appellant filed this direct appeal.⁴ For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgments of sentence.

Appellant first contends that the jury's verdict convicting him of two counts of murder in the first degree was not supported by the evidence. As in all cases in which the death penalty has been imposed, this Court is required to determine whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict for first-degree murder. See Commonwealth v. Spotz, 552 Pa. 499, 716 A.2d 580, 583 (1998); 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). In conducting such a review, we must view the evidence admitted at trial, and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, and determine whether the jury could find every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Spotz, 716 A.2d at 583; Commonwealth v. Keaton, 556 Pa. 442, 729 A.2d 529, 536 (1999). Circumstantial evidence alone is sufficient to convict a defendant of a crime. See Commonwealth v. Rios, 546 Pa. 271, 684 A.2d 1025, 1028 (1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1231, 117 S.Ct. 1825, 137 L.Ed.2d 1032 (1997).

Evidence is sufficient to sustain a conviction for first-degree murder where the Commonwealth establishes that the defendant unlawfully killed another human being with the specific intent to do so.⁵ See 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(d); Rios, 684 A.2d at 1030. The use of a deadly weapon on a vital part of the body is sufficient to establish the specific intent to kill. See Commonwealth v. Rivera, 565 Pa. 289, 773 A.2d 131, 135 (2001); Commonwealth v. Jones, 542 Pa. 464, 668 A.2d 491, 500 (1995).

Here, the evidence adduced at trial establishes that on November 26, 2001, Appellant was at the home of Daniel Heleva and Robyn Otto in Polk Township, Monroe County, where he resided with the couple and their two children. At approximately 6:30 p.m., John Mendez and Ricardo Lopez arrived at the house to recover two guns that Mendez claimed belonged to him. Appellant retrieved the guns from an upstairs bedroom and gave them to Mendez. Mendez and Lopez then left.

Later that night, Heleva returned to the house with Richard Boyko and discovered that the guns were missing. After Appellant explained to Heleva that Mendez had taken the guns, Heleva instructed Boyko to call Mendez and have him come back to the house. At this time, another man, Jimmy Frey, was in the living room watching television.

Mendez and Lopez returned to the house, but Heleva did not permit Lopez to enter. Mendez, however, came inside, where Heleva immediately accused him of stealing his guns and the two men began fighting in the kitchen. When this fight was resolved, Appellant and Lopez joined Heleva and Mendez in the kitchen, where the four men then sat around the table talking. Boyko left the house. While the men were in the kitchen, another argument erupted. This time, Appellant grabbed a .12 gauge shotgun and shot Mendez in the stomach. He then turned the gun towards Lopez and shot him in the side. After Lopez collapsed on the floor, Appellant placed the barrel of the shotgun on Lopez's back and again fired the weapon, killing him. Appellant then chased Mendez up the stairs to the second floor of the house, where he shot Mendez a second time. Although wounded, Mendez escaped from Appellant and Heleva and fled to a neighbor's house with Appellant and Heleva in pursuit. Mendez knocked on the neighbor's front door, but before anyone answered, Appellant and Heleva grabbed Mendez and dragged him across the lawn back to their house. Frey, who had been watching the incident, retrieved the shotgun that Appellant had dropped on the lawn, and hid it inside a sofa in the house. Once the men had dragged Mendez back inside, Appellant inflicted several blows with a hatchet type of weapon, killing him.

Meanwhile, police received a 911 call from Heleva's neighbor reporting a domestic violence dispute at Heleva's home. In response, Pennsylvania State Troopers Matthew Tretter and Joel Rutter arrived at the scene and spoke to the neighbor, who told them that she had heard a loud noise and a high-pitched voice screaming "help me" outside of her door and that when she looked outside, she had seen someone being dragged across her front lawn into Heleva's residence. The troopers noticed that there was a smear of blood on the neighbor's front door and that a wooden porch railing had been broken. The troopers then proceeded to Heleva's residence. Along the way, the troopers noticed a bloody jacket on the neighbor's lawn, and they observed blood on Heleva's door when they arrived. When the troopers knocked on the door and announced their presence, Appellant opened the door and initially denied knowledge of any incident, but then stated that he had been assaulted by two men.

At this time, Trooper Tretter placed Appellant in the back of the patrol car, handcuffed him, and, still believing that this was a domestic violence incident, asked Appellant where the woman was. Appellant responded: "There is no `she.' They are in the basement. I shot them." See N.T., 11/15/2002, at 80. Trooper Tretter then called for backup. After additional state troopers arrived on the scene, they entered the residence, set up a perimeter and initiated a crime scene log. The police found the bodies of Lopez and Mendez in the basement of the residence.⁶

The troopers transported Appellant, along with Heleva, Robyn Otto, and their children, to the Lehighton Barracks. Boyko and Frey were also rounded up and brought to the station. Once at the station, Trooper Joseph Sommers and Corporal Thomas McAndrew read Appellant Miranda warnings at approximately 3:45 a.m. Appellant signed a rights waiver form, and the troopers began to interview him. After about one hour, at approximately 5:04 a.m., Appellant began to make a tape-recorded statement. In this statement, Appellant admitted that he shot both Mendez and Lopez twice, but claimed that he only started shooting after he believed Lopez was about to go out to his car to retrieve a gun. See N.T., 11/18/2002, at 270-71. Appellant also admitted that after Mendez ran outside following the shooting, he and Heleva dragged Mendez back inside, at which time Appellant grabbed the hatchet type weapon and struck Mendez in the head. See id. at 272-73.

After Appellant made this statement, at approximately 6:00 a.m., the officers took a break from this questioning. Trooper Sommers and Corporal McAndrew conferred with the other investigators involved in the case and returned to Appellant for further questioning. At approximately 7:10 a.m., Appellant indicated that he wished to speak to Corporal McAndrew alone and proceeded to tell the corporal that he had lied in his original statement. Appellant then gave a statement which again implicated himself in the murders, but in this statement, Appellant claimed that he had actually only shot Lopez once, in the kitchen. See N.T., 11/19/2002, at 290. Appellant stated that he did not shoot Lopez the second time. see id. at 291.⁷ Although Appellant also admitted that he shot Mendez a second time, Appellant claimed that it was Heleva who eventually struck Mendez in the head with the hatchet type weapon, killing him. See id. at 292-93.

Appellant also testified at his trial, where he again admitted to shooting both Lopez and Mendez. Appellant told the jury, however, that he had not intended to kill either Lopez or Mendez. See N.T., 11/21/2002, at 635-38. In general, Appellant's testimony described the events as he had recounted them in his second statement to Corporal McAndrew.⁸ See id.

Dr. Samuel Land, who performed the autopsies on Mendez and Lopez, also took the stand at Appellant's trial. Dr. Land testified that, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the cause of Lopez's death was shotgun wounds to the chest and abdomen, and that each wound was to a vital part of the body and independently fatal. See N.T., 11/19/2002, at 343, 348-49. Dr. Land further testified that, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the cause of Mendez's death was gunshot wounds to the abdomen⁹ and sharp force wounds to the head. Id. at 358-61. Dr. Land stated that each of the gunshot wounds to Mendez's abdomen was to a vital part of his body. Id.

Based on this evidence, we agree with the trial court that there was clearly sufficient evidence to convict Appellant of the murders of Lopez and Mendez. Although Appellant now argues, without much elaboration, that there was not sufficient evidence to convict him because the Commonwealth failed to establish that he had the specific intent to kill...