Com. v. Spetzer

Decision Date31 December 2002
PartiesCOMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Jon Anthony SPETZER, Appellee.
CourtPennsylvania Supreme Court

Ray F. Gricar, District Attorney, Stephen P. Sloane, Bellefonte, District Attorney's Office, for Com.

Ronald S. McGlaughlin, State College, for Jon Anthony Spetzer.

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

OPINION OF THE COURT

Justice CASTILLE.

The issue on appeal is whether the Superior Court erred in granting a new trial on grounds that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object, under the spousal confidential communications privilege set forth in 42 Pa.C.S. § 5914, to the voluntary testimony of appellee's wife relating statements appellee made to her while charges were pending against him for the rape of his twelve year-old stepdaughter, B.G. The challenged statements, many of which were recorded by police with appellee's wife's consent, included: (1) admissions to having raped B.G.; (2) details of a plan to abduct and rape B.G. and another of his minor stepdaughters; and (3) attempts to intimidate his wife and B.G. into recanting their accusations. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that appellee's challenged statements to his wife, all of which referred to his past and future-intended sexual assaults upon his minor stepdaughters, were properly admitted at trial. Accordingly, we vacate the decision of the Superior Court on this question and remand to that court for proceedings consistent with this Opinion.

Appellee's wife, Kim, who had been married to appellee for four years by the time of trial, described their marriage as "sadistic and very violent," as she endured repeated sexual, physical and mental abuse at the hands of her husband. Throughout the course of their marriage, appellee would order Kim to "step into [his] office," at which point appellee would take her into the bedroom of their home and physically assault her.

In January 1995, Kim's four daughters from a previous marriage, including twelve-year-old B.G., traveled from Kentucky where they lived with their biological father, to Pennsylvania, intending to stay with the Spetzers until May. The Spetzers lived in a two-bedroom mobile home with their own two small children, leaving little space for the four older girls, who slept in sleeping bags on the Spetzers' living room floor. On a Saturday evening in April, B.G. awoke on the living room floor to find appellee fondling her breasts and vagina. Although B.G. repeatedly asked appellee to stop, appellee persisted despite her protests.

Within a few days of the fondling incident, appellee told B.G. to sleep in her younger stepbrother's room on the pretext that she could assist the child in the event of a fire in the mobile home. At around the same time, Kim, who normally went to bed between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and midnight, began falling asleep between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. She later learned that appellee had been surreptitiously drugging her with chemicals that made her drowsy. Appellee, who also normally retired between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., began going to bed between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m. In the same period of time, appellee told Kim that he did not want her daughters to wear bras and underwear to bed, claiming that the bras would cut off their circulation and the girls' underwear was creating too much laundry.

A few days after B.G. began sleeping in her stepbrother's bedroom, appellee entered the room while B.G. was sleeping and raped B.G. at knifepoint. B.G. could not scream during the attack because appellee forced a folded tube sock into her mouth, which caused the sides of her mouth to split and bleed. After the rape, appellee threatened to kill B.G. or ruin her life if she said anything to anyone. Appellee again sexually assaulted B.G. on each of the two following nights. Prior to the second rape, appellee put on a condom and applied vaseline, telling B.G., "it would slide easier." Again, he forced a sock into B.G.'s mouth, but this time he secured it with duct tape. On the third evening, appellee had unprotected, forced sexual intercourse with B.G. During each rape, appellee held a knife and threatened to kill B.G. if she told anyone.

In May 1995, Kim, who was unaware of the rapes, drove her four daughters, her two small children by appellee, her sister and her niece to Kentucky. Kim intended to return her four daughters to their father and then return to Pennsylvania, at which time she and appellee would move to Florida. En route to Kentucky, B.G. told her cousin that appellee had raped her. The cousin informed her mother, Kim's sister, who in turn told Kim. B.G.'s father also learned of the rapes from a family member and he immediately reported the rapes to the appropriate Kentucky child protection authorities.

Kim confronted appellee about the rapes over the telephone, at which time appellee became angry and told Kim that she "better make sure that kid keeps her mouth shut. You better tell your sister to mind her own business and you better get your ass back up here." Kim did not return to Pennsylvania. A few weeks later, however, appellee traveled by bus to Kentucky, retrieved Kim and their two children, and drove them back to Pennsylvania. During the trip to Pennsylvania, Kim told appellee that B.G. and her father had reported the rapes to authorities in Kentucky. She also told him that she was "sick to [her] stomach," "disgusted," and "didn't think [she] ever wanted him to touch [her] again." Appellee became enraged, grabbed Kim by the back of the head, pulled her head down and forced her to perform oral sex, all while he was driving the car with the couple's two children awake in the back seat. He then stated: "I think you will do what I want you to from now on."

They continued to argue about the rapes during the rest of the trip back to Pennsylvania. At one point, late at night near Cumberland, Maryland, appellee became upset and pulled the car into an empty parking lot. There, he assaulted Kim and choked her while telling her to make sure B.G. "kept her mouth shut," and that "when I tell you to do something, you're going to do it."

Once back at home in Pennsylvania, Kim and appellee again discussed the rapes of B.G. and the fact that Kim's family was angry with her for not reporting the rapes in Pennsylvania. Again, appellee became very angry and began screaming at Kim, who was two and one half months pregnant at the time. Appellee kicked her, pushed her against a wall and punched her arms, causing bruising. Kim managed to flee from the home and ran down the street screaming that appellee was going to kill her. She went to the home of a neighbor whom she had never met and called the police. The police responded and arrested appellee, who was then admitted to Meadows Psychiatric Hospital.

Following appellee's arrest, Kim petitioned for a Protection From Abuse (PFA) order. When she returned home, however, she found a note from appellee's father stating that he wanted the car, which he owned, returned to him or he would have Kim arrested for stealing it. The note also informed Kim that she had two weeks to vacate her mobile home, which appellee's parents also owned. Kim testified that she had no money, job, car or place to live on her own, and that she was completely dependent upon appellee and his parents. Therefore, she agreed to withdraw the PFA petition. In response, appellee's parents returned the car to Kim and allowed her to remain in the mobile home.

In an effort to learn more about what appellee had done to B.G., and to determine whether he had abused any of her other children, Kim spoke several times on the telephone to appellee and visited him once while he was at Meadows Psychiatric Hospital. During the visit, appellee told his wife that he did not rape B.G.; instead, he said, "it really wasn't sex because I didn't get it all the way in." He also admitted that he kept B.G. quiet during the attack by stuffing a sock in her mouth and securing it with duct tape and that he "really had her scared with a knife." Appellee told Kim that B.G. was "so terrified of me after a while she just let me do it." Kim testified that, as appellee was relating this fact to her, he "was laughing about it like it was fun to him, funny to him that he had terrified her so much that she would do what he wanted her to do without having to terrorize her any more to do it." Appellee admitted to having raped B.G. five times, and to threatening B.G. that if she ever told anyone of the assaults he would kill her.

In July of 1995, B.G.'s father brought her three sisters and B.G. to Pennsylvania to report the rapes. Both B.G. and Kim made statements to the police about the rapes, B.G. stating what had occurred and Kim reporting that appellee had admitted to her that he had sex with the twelve-year-old B.G., although appellee deemed it to be consensual. Appellee, who had been released from the hospital by that time, became enraged that B.G. and her father had reported the rapes and that Kim was unable to convince them to return to Kentucky and he again assaulted Kim. He threatened to kill B.G. and her father by shooting the tires of their car as they were driving or to follow them to Kentucky and shoot B.G. with his compound bow and arrow as she returned home from school.

On July 14, 1995, appellee was charged with rape, statutory rape and related crimes as a result of his assaults upon B.G., and bail was set at $25,000. While appellee was in jail and after he was released on bail, he continued to engage in a course of conduct designed to intimidate Kim and B.G. into recanting their accusations. During one jail visit, appellee told Kim to tell his lawyer that she had lied to the police about the rapes and to have B.G. write a letter to the District Attorney's Office stating that she had also lied. Appellee suggested that B.G. write that sh...

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27 cases
  • Commonwealth v. Luster
    • United States
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    • 23 Julio 2013
    ...turns in part on the reasonable expectation the declarant has that the communication will remain confidential.” Commonwealth v. Spetzer, 572 Pa. 17, 813 A.2d 707, 722 (2002). Here, the record shows that Appellant and his wife were separated prior to January 28, 2003, when the victim was kil......
  • Com. v. Small, 472 CAP.
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    ...only Small and Janice Small were in the room, and the confidential privilege applied. Id. The court relied on Commonwealth v. Spetzer, 572 Pa. 17, 813 A.2d 707 (2002) (plurality opinion), which held where the marriage is in a severe state of disharmony, the confidential communications privi......
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    • 25 Febrero 2009
    ...with whom the child does not reside, without reference to the duration of the care. See Iowa Code § 232.68(7). In Commonwealth v. Spetzer, 572 Pa. 17, 813 A.2d 707 (2002), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reviewed the admissibility of communications between the accsued 556 F.3d 991 and his......
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    ...actions if she had him arrested and prosecuted for his attack on her), aff'd,303 N.Y. 782, 103 N.E.2d 895 (1952); Commonwealth v. Spetzer, 572 Pa. 17, 813 A.2d 707, 720 (2002) (defendant's statements to wife admitting he raped her minor daughter, details of plans to abduct the daughter and ......
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2 books & journal articles
  • § 39.03 SPOUSAL COMMUNICATION PRIVILEGE
    • United States
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    • Carolina Academic Press Understanding Evidence (2018) Title Chapter 39 Spousal and Family Privileges
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    ...that no confidential relationship, therefore, existed between the spouses at the time of Mrs. Vella's murder."); Commonwealth v. Spetzer, 813 A.2d 707, 720-21 (Pa. 2002) ("It is safe to say that the communications appellee made to his wife here—concerning appellee's past (e.g., rape), conti......

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