Com. v. Williams

• Decision Date: 29 July 1983
• Citation: 464 A.2d 411,317 Pa.Super. 456
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Charles Edward WILLIAMS, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

Page 411

464 A.2d 411

317 Pa.Super. 456

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Charles Edward WILLIAMS, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted Jan. 20, 1982.

Filed July 29, 1983.

Jeffrey Schmehl, Asst. Public Defender, Reading, for appellant.

George C. Yatron, Dist. Atty., Reading, for Com., appellee.

Before JOHNSON, WATKINS and LIPEZ, JJ.

LIPEZ, Judge:

Appellant Charles Edward Williams was convicted by a jury of rape, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3121, indecent assault, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3126, simple assault, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2701, and recklessly endangering another person, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2705. The charges arose from an incident in which, according to the Commonwealth's evidence, appellant grabbed a fourteen-year-old girl who had been walking along a city street with a friend. He forced the girl at knifepoint into an abandoned house, where he raped her, then ran away. Based on a description given to police by the victim and her companion, appellant was arrested in a nearby bar after police had spotted him running away from the area where the rape had occurred and had seen him run into the bar. He was put into a police car and brought to the victim and her friend, both of whom identified him as the attacker. ¹ Appellant was then taken to police headquarters, where his clothes and other personal belongings were taken by police before he was put into a cell. A search warrant was secured for seizure of body samples from appellant, and these samples were taken at about 10:30 that night. Analysis of the clothing and body samples indicated that appellant could have committed the rape.

Appellant makes eight arguments for reversal of his conviction. The first four of these, which we shall address together, are general claims that the verdict is contrary to the law, the evidence, and the weight of the evidence and that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict. ² We find them to be without merit.

In considering challenges to the weight and sufficiency of the evidence, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict winner--in this case, the Commonwealth. Commonwealth v. Cropper, 463 Pa. 529, 345 A.2d 645 (1975). The test to be employed in resolving these challenges is whether, accepting as true all the evidence, direct and circumstantial, which could properly have been the basis for the jury's verdict, a finder of fact could reasonably have found that all the elements of the crimes had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Cheatham, 429 Pa. 198, 239 A.2d 293 (1968); Commonwealth v. Richbourg, 260 Pa.Super.Ct. 438, 394 A.2d 1007 (1978). Here, the Commonwealth's evidence showed that the victim had been raped by a black man wearing dark pants, a dark jacket, a scarf and a print shirt. Appellant, who was subsequently identified by an eyewitness as the attacker, was apprehended by police shortly after the rape only a few blocks from the house where the incident occurred, wearing only dark pants and a tee shirt. A brown jacket, a print shirt and an orange scarf were found discarded in various alleys near the scene of the incident. Tests performed on the victim revealed the presence of seminal fluid in her vagina, and tests performed on her underclothes showed that the semen was of blood type A, appellant's blood type. Tests performed on appellant's clothing revealed the presence of pubic hairs which exactly matched those of the victim. Although neither the victim nor the eyewitness could identify him positively at trial, there was testimony establishing that appellant was the man who had been identified as the rapist at the time of the incident, and showing that drastic changes in his hairstyle and facial hair might account for the difficulty in making the in-court identification.

Viewed as a whole, we think that the Commonwealth's evidence, presented by credible eyewitnesses and experts, was sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt all the elements of the crimes charged. We therefore find the verdict to be entirely in accordance with the law and the evidence, and reject appellant's first four claims.

His remaining four claims are: (1) the court erred in refusing to suppress the identification of appellant by the victim's companion and the physical evidence seized from appellant; (2) that the court erred in denying appellant's petition to dismiss under Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 1100; (3) that the court erred in ordering appellant to try on articles of clothing in the presence of the jury; and (4) that the court erred in admitting a blue print shirt and a knife into evidence. We reject all of these arguments and affirm the judgment of sentence.

I

Appellant's first contention is that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress physical evidence seized from him and testimony as to the identification by the victim's companion of appellant as the attacker. In considering such claims, we must determine whether the evidence supports the court's factual findings and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those findings were legitimate. This determination is made considering only the evidence of the prosecution's witnesses and so much of the defense evidence as, fairly read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted. Commonwealth v. Kichline, 468 Pa. 265, 361 A.2d 282 (1976); Commonwealth v. Hunt, 280 Pa.Super.Ct. 205, 421 A.2d 684 (1980). Findings supported by the record and legitimate legal conclusions drawn therefrom will not be disturbed. Commonwealth v. Sparrow, 471 Pa. 490, 370 A.2d 712 (1977).

A.

Appellant first argues that both the identification and the physical evidence should be suppressed because they flowed from his arrest, which he claims was made without probable cause. We find that because the police did have probable cause to arrest appellant, the arrest was legal and this argument for suppression must fail.

The standard to be used in assessing whether there was probable cause for a given arrest was set forth by this court in Commonwealth v. Jones, 271 Pa.Super.Ct. 528, 532, 414 A.2d 379, 381 (1979):

Probable cause to arrest existed if, at the time appellant was detained by the police, the facts and circumstances known to them and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information, were sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that appellant had committed the ... [crime]. Commonwealth v. Powers, 484 Pa. 198, 201, 398 A.2d 1013, 1014 (1979). The test is not one of certainties but one of probabilities dealing with considerations of everyday life. Commonwealth v. Dickerson, 468 Pa. 599, 605, 364 A.2d 677, 681 (1976). The facts known must be viewed from the vantage point of a prudent, reasonable, cautious police officer on the scene at the time of the arrest guided by his experience and training. Commonwealth v. Tolbert, 235 Pa.Super.Ct. 227, 230, 341 A.2d 198, 200 (1975).

Here, an eyewitness described the rapist to police as a black man with a mustache. Shortly after this description was broadcast, a police officer saw a man fitting this description running across a field near the scene of the incident. The man ran in front of the police car, stumbled when he saw it, then shouted that a girl needed help and pointed in the direction of the rape scene. The officer ordered the man to approach the police car, but he disregarded the order and continued to run away from the area where the rape had occurred. The police officer was unable to pursue him because construction made the road impassable, but he broadcast a further description of the individual, saying that he wore dark pants, a blue print shirt, and no jacket despite the winter temperatures. Another officer spotted a man fitting this description running a few blocks away, on the other side of the construction area. Upon seeing the police officer, the man stopped short and ran into a bar. The policeman followed him into the bar and arrested him there. The arrest occurred within approximately five minutes of the first report of the incident and only a few blocks away from the house where the rape had occurred. We think that the fact that appellant fit the description given by the victim and the eyewitness, taken together with appellant's suspicious behavior in ignoring police orders to stop, his repeated attempts to escape or hide from police and the proximity of these events in both time and place to the rape justified the police in arresting him. We therefore find that there was probable cause for the arrest, and that neither the identification nor the physical evidence need be suppressed as fruits of that arrest.

B.

Appellant argues further that even if the arrest was valid, the identification should be suppressed. The record shows that the identification occurred about twenty-five minutes after the rape. Appellant was transported in a police car to an area near that where the initial attack occurred. He was taken from the car, and stood near the car under a streetlight when the witness, standing on the sidewalk, was asked if he were the man who had attacked her friend. She answered that he was. Appellant contends that the fact that he was in police custody at the time of the identification was so suggestive as to render the witness' identification of him as the assailant inadmissible. We disagree.

The standard to be used in determining the admissibility of identifications pursuant to "show-ups" like the one in this case is whether, viewing the totality of the circumstances, the identification was reliable even though the confrontation was suggestive. Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 106, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 2249, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977). In dealing with such on-the-scene identifications, our courts have recognized that "the close proximity in time and place to the actual offense so enhances the reliability as to outweigh the prejudice" in most cases. Commonwealth v. Mackey, 447 Pa. 32, 36, 288 A.2d 778, 780 (1972). The factors to be considered in...