Com. v. Youngblood
| Decision Date | 02 July 1973 |
| Citation | 307 A.2d 922,453 Pa. 225 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Kenneth YOUNGBLOOD. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Milton M. Stein, Chief, Appeals Div., James D. Crawford, Deputy Dist. Atty., Richard A. Sprague, 1st Asst. Dist. Atty., Arlen Specter, Dist. Atty., Philadelphia, for appellant.
W. Bourne Ruthrauff, Philadelphia, for appellee.
Before JONES, C.J., and EAGEN, O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY and MANDERINO, JJ.
This is an appeal by the Commonwealth from an order of the Court of Common Pleas granting a new trial to the defendant, Kenneth Youngblood. It presents, inter alia, the question whether a court En banc considering a convicted defendant's motion for a new trial must include the pre-trial suppression judge among its members and have before it the notes of testimony from the suppression hearing. On the merits there is also presented the question whether the court En banc erred in overruling the suppression judge's decision that a confession was voluntarily made and admissible in evidence.
The history of the case is as follows: On April 14, 1969, the defendant, accompanied by his sister Hattie Bryant, surrendered himself to the Philadelphia police. After several hours in custody the defendant made a statement in which he admitted shooting Hattie's husband, Sidney Bryant. Subesquently, the defendant was charged with murder, to which he pleaded not guilty. Youngblood filed a motion to suppress the confession and after a full hearing the suppression judge denied the motion and ruled the statement admissible. The case then went to trial before a judge and jury. As permissible under Pennsylvania practice, the voluntariness of the confession was again challenged at trial and that issue was submitted to the jury. By its verdict of second degree murder, the jury unquestionably accepted the confession as voluntary. Post-trial motions were filed and argued before a court En banc consisting of the trial judge and two other judges, none of whom was the suppression judge. The court En banc ordered a new trial, ruling unanimously that the defendant had not intelligently waived his right to counsel as required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and that therefore the confession should not have been admitted into evidence. This appeal followed.
At the outset, we note that the right of the Commonwealth to appeal from adverse decisions in criminal cases is limited to pure questions of law. Commonwealth v. Tabb, 417 Pa. 13, 207 A.2d 884 (1965). As the three issues raised herein are in that category, the Commonwealth's appeal is proper. Deciding as we do, however, that the first and third questions are without merit, and that the second has been waived, we will affirm the grant of a new trial by the court En banc.
The Commonwealth's first contention is that the court En banc as it was constituted did not have the power to overrule the finding of the suppression judge that the confession was admissible. We recently held in Commonwealth v. Ware, 438 Pa. 517, 522--523, 265 A.2d 790 (1970), that while a court En banc cannot overrule the findings of fact of the suppression judge, it can reverse on the basis of legal conclusions drawn from those facts. To allow any other result would undermine the function of the court En banc. For a more indepth discussion of the role of the court En banc in this situation, see Judge Jacob's opinion for the Superior Court in Commonwealth v. Bonser, 215 Pa.Super. 452, 454--458, 258 A.2d 675 (1969).
The Commonwealth argues, however, that in the instant case the court En banc made its own finding of fact, in direct conflict with a finding of the suppression judge. We disagree. The following facts were found by the suppression judge and were accepted by the court En banc: Upon arrival at the police station at approximately 12:20 A.M. on April 14, the defendant was given the standard Miranda warnings. At that time he said he did not wish to say anything until he had talked with his sister. After the sister had been brought into to the room, the warnings were re-read to the defendant. To the question 'Do you want either to talk with a lawyer at this time or to have a lawyer with you while we ask you questions?' the defendant replied 'Yes, I want a lawyer'. Questioning then stopped. The sister left at 2:28 A.M., saying that she would be back with an attorney later that morning. Twelve minutes later, a detective entered the interrogation room where the defendant had been left alone and began to fill out an 'intelligence summary' consisting of the defendant's name, age, address, employment, and other background information of general nature. After answering two or three questions on the form, the defendant told the detective he wanted to recount everything that had happened. He stated that the only reason he had not done so sooner was in order to satisfy his sister, who was concerned and tired, so that she would return home and rest. Without a further reading of the Miranda warnings, Youngblood then proceeded to give a full inculpatory account of the killing of his brother-in-law.
The Commonwealth concedes that up to this point the findings of the suppression judge and the court En banc coincide. The court En banc, however, also considered the fact that the defendant was a mental defective. Admittedly, the suppression judge made no specific finding in this regard. Therefore, while it is impossible to say that the court En banc overruled the suppression judge, it does appear to have made a new or additional finding of fact. We think the finding was justified in this case. At the suppression hearing the Commonwealth itself introduced the report of a court-appointed psychiatrist. The summary section of this evaluation contained the following conclusion:
Mr. Youngblood would appear to represent a Personality Disorder, Schizoid Personality which means that he appears to fantasize and withdraw and establish few meaningful relationships in life. He, furthermore, is a young man of mildly defective intelligence.
In addition, there was presented to the suppression judge uncontradicted testimony that the defendant had progressed through the third grade when he was removed to a special school for the mentally retarded. On this basis alone, i.e. accepting as true the Commonwealth's evidence on mental capacity and without considering the testimony of a defense psychiatrist that the defendant suffered from organic brain damage and was a schizophrenic personality, the position taken by the court En banc was altogether justified. Its function was analagous to that performed by a court in reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, and it concluded that as a matter of law the evidence was not sufficient to find voluntariness. 1 Moreover, as will appear later in this opinion, the determination of mental infirmity was unnecessary to the court's ultimate invalidation of appellant's confession.
The Commonwealth's second contention is that it was improper for the court En banc to overrule the suppression judge because (1) that judge was not a member of the court En banc, and (2) the court En banc rendered its decision without having before it the transcribed notes of testimony from the suppression hearing. 2
The contention of appellant that error was committed in failing to have the suppression hearing judge sit on the court En banc we find to be without merit.
As to the failure of the court En banc to await transcription of the notes of testimony, any error arising therefrom is harmless. 3 In the first place, the court En banc had the equivalent of a complete transcript. The Commonwealth concedes that with one exception the same evidence introduced at the suppression hearing was also introduced at trial. The missing piece of evidence was the psychiatric report of the court-appointed expert, referred to above. The summary of this report, however, was read to the court En banc by defense counsel. The Commonwealth argues that this procedure was unsatisfactory because counsel improperly characterized the entire report as being in substantial agreement with that of the defendant's expert. The faulty characterization, however, was of minimal importance, attested to by the District Attorney's failure to object at the time. 4 In the second place, the legal question which the court En banc was asked to decide is the same one which has been raised by the Commonwealth in this Court and which will be considered in Part III, infar. We have been provided with the entire record and can correct any errors which might have been made below.
The Commonwealth urges, finally, that the court En banc erroneously concluded as a matter of law, based upon the facts as recited above, that the defendant did not knowingly and intelligently waive his right to counsel. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 473--475, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1627--1628, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), the Supreme Court of the United States issued the following mandate: With equal clarity, however, the Court held that ...
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