Com. v. Treftz
| Citation | 351 A.2d 265,465 Pa. 614 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Donald D. TREFTZ, Appellant. |
| Decision Date | 29 January 1976 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania |
Charles F. Gilchrest, Routman, Moore, Goldstone & Valentino, Sharon, for appellant.
Joseph J. Nelson, Dist. Atty., R. F. Banks, Mercer, for appellee.
Before JONES, C.J., and EAGEN, O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY and NIX, JJ.
Appellant, Donald P. Treftz, was convicted of murder in the first degree following a jury trial and sentenced to life imprisonment. Motions in arrest of judgment and for a new trial on the ground of after-discovered evidence were denied by the trial judge sitting for the Court of Common Pleas of Mercer County. This appeal followed. 1
Appellant raises several questions on appeal: one, involving the trial court's denial of a motion to suppress certain evidence allegedly obtained in violation of appellant's fourth amendment rights; another, questioning the sufficiency of the evidence against appellant such as to warrant the jury verdict of guilt; and, lastly, whether or not certain post trial evidence justifies the granting of a new trial.
Appellant Treftz was president of the Masury, Ohio chapter of a motorcycle club known as the 'Breed' Motorcycle Club. He had moved to Lyndon, Illinois, on June 1, 1973, and was arrested there on November 12 of that year on charges stemming from the murder of one Mark Allen Chancellor on October 13, 1973. At the time police officers executed a defective 2 search warrant covering a certain portion of a ninety acre parcel of land, owned by a Mr. James Gilkey and located in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, the appellant Treftz was in the State of Illinois as well.
The search pursuant to said warrant resulted in the discovery of Chancellor's body buried in a shallow grave 148 yards from the backyard of a small farm house in which James Gilkey's nephew John and the latter's family had lived since 1960. John Gilkey was also a member of the Breed's Ohio chapter and the evidence adduced at trial showed that the farm house was occasionally used as a meeting ground for club members.
The trial testimony further revealed that Chancellor and another individual were brought to the Gilkey residence on the day of October 13 to meet with the Ohio chapter members for the supposed purpose of joining the club. Instead, club 'prospect' Chancellor was beaten and later shot to death.
Appellant Treftz sought unsuccessfully at his pre-trial evidentiary hearing to have the body of Mark Chancellor suppressed from trial on the grounds that the body was discovered during an illegal search of the wooded area directly behind the Gilkey residence in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania State Constitution.
A brief description of the searched premises and a relation of the appellant's interest in those premises is necessary in order to fully determine whether or not there was a reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of the appellant such as to confer standing upon him to attack the constitutionally of the search.
James Gilkey is the owner of the ninety acre tract of land on which the house occupied by his nephew John is located. John Gilkey and his family have lived there under an informal understanding between the uncle and nephew established over the years, that in return for the up-keep of the house, the John Gilkey family would be permitted to live in the house rent-free, having unrestricted access to the surrounding land. The house itself is apparently quite small, fronting a main rural route. Immediately behind the house is a cleared area (an outhouse and a garage are located to the side of the house). At the furthest end of this cleared yard is a garbage pile. A fence separates this portion of the 'dwelling' from the wooded area overgrown with foliage where state police officers uncovered the body of Chancellor on October 26, 1973. At one time this wooded area was used as a pasture, but such use ended approximately twenty-five years ago. The elder Mr. Gilkey testified that the area has since been freely open to hunters, although he further testified that he had not seen hunters upon the premises during the past two years.
Six Pennsylvania State Police Officers arrived at the farm house at 9:30 a.m. on October 26 prepared to execute a search warrant covering that address. 3 No one was on the premises at the time, nor were the officers able to reach the elder Gilkey. The officers proceeded to the rear portion of the home and then began to fan out beyond the fenced area, looking for possible grave sites. At approximately 10:30 a.m., the body of the deceased victim was discovered in a shallow grave located 148 yards from the dwelling area. Testimony at the pre-trial suppression hearing disclosed that while the grave was entirely covered by dirt, the head of the deceased was buried fifteen inches underground, his buttocks under ten inches of dirt, and his feet under only four inches of dirt.
The entry of the officers and the digging on the land were not incident to a lawful arrest of the defendant or any other person.
As noted previously, appellant Treftz was in Lyndon, Illinois, at the time of the October 26 search and seizure. The record below discloses that the appellant had known John Gilkey and his wife Mary since September of 1972. Treftz moved to Illinois in June of 1973. He testified at his suppression hearing that prior to that move, he had stayed overnight at the Gilkey residence on approximately ten different occasions because it was 'Either too late at night and (sic) too drunk to go back to Sharon, so I just stayed there.' 4 In addition, appellant testified that in March 1973, Mary Gilkey asked him to stay at the farm house with herself and her children, John Gilkey being in police custody at that time on charges stemming from the Chancellor murder. Appellant stayed on that occasion approximately four to five days. Although he did not pay rent to Mary Gilkey, he did purchase groceries for the family.
Following his move to Illinois, appellant regularly visited the Gilkey residence on a twice-monthly basis. The Gilkeys did not provide appellant with a key, but on those weekends that they expected his visit, the Gilkeys either stayed at home awaiting his arrival or otherwise left the door unlocked. In August of 1973, appellant stayed at the farmhouse for almost two weeks while his motorcycle was being repaired at a nearby service station. Again, he did not pay rent but contributed money towards groceries and gasoline.
During these visits to the Gilkey residence, appellant had free access throughout the house and surrounding yard. He testified that on certain occasions he would go out with other club members into the backwoods area for target practice or club meetings. He stored two of his motorcycles on the Gilkey property for varying lengths of time, but as of October 1, 1973, the appellant no longer had any personal property or belongings remaining with the Gilkeys. Furthermore, the last visit testified to by the appellant was on October 1.
Following a full evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied appellant's motion to suppress the corpse 5 of Chancellor on the grounds that appellant lacked standing to attack the search of the Gilkey property. The suppression court's written opinion further stated that even if Treftz did have standing, 'we do not believe that the search and seizure in this case was an unreasonable invasion of privacy.' We agree.
The law governing standing to attack the validity of a search and seizure has consistently adhered to the principle that constitutional rights under the fourth amendment are personal in nature. Brown v. United States, 411 U.S. 223, 230, 93 S.Ct. 1565, 36 L.Ed.2d 208 (1973); United States v. Wilcox, 357 F.Supp. 514, 517 (E.D.Pa.1973); Commonwealth v. Ross, 452 Pa. 500, 505, 307 A.2d 898, 900 (1973). A defendant solely aggrieved by virtue of the introduction of damaging evidence will be denied standing. Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 171, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969); Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 261, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960); United States v. Maroney, 220 F.Supp. 801, 806 (W.D.Pa.1963); Commonwealth v. Raymond, 412 Pa. 194, 201, 194 A.2d 150, 153 (1963).
The United States Supreme Court in Brown, supra, has outlined the perimeters of what shall be deemed essential to a finding that the criminal defendant's Own personal rights lay at the core of the improper and proscribed governmental action, thereby justifying the invocation of the exclusionary rule. In the instant case, appellant Treftz fails to meet any of the Brown standards.
Under Brown, a defendant must allege one of the following 'personal' interests in order to establish standing: (1) his presence on the premises at the time of the search and seizure; 6 (2) a possessory interest in the evidence improperly seized; 7 (3) that the offense charged include as an essential element of the prosecution's case, the element of possession at the time of the contested search and seizure; 8 or, (4) a proprietory or possessory interest in the searched premises.
In applying the facts of this case to the Brown test, the following can briefly be stated: (1) appellant Treftz was residing in Lyndon, Illinois, at the time Pennsylvania State Policemen searched the Gilkey property; (2) appellant has asserted no possessory interest in the corpse of Mark Allen Chancellor (as he obviously would be hard-pressed to logically do); and, (3) possession is not an element, essential or otherwise, of the crimes charged against appellant, the indictment charging him with the crimes of murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter and criminal conspiracy in connection with the death of Chancellor.
Whether or not appellant Treftz has alleged facts sufficient...
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