Commonwealth v. Charleston

• Decision Date: 07 August 2014
• Citation: 2014 PA Super 116,94 A.3d 1012
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Brandon Denzel CHARLESTON, Appellant.

94 A.3d 1012
2014 PA Super 116

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee
v.
Brandon Denzel CHARLESTON, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted Aug. 5, 2013.
Filed June 6, 2014.
Reargument Denied Aug. 7, 2014.

[94 A.3d 1015]

Burton A. Rose, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Hugh J. Burns, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, Philadelphia, for Commonwealth, appellee.

BEFORE: PANELLA, J., OLSON, J., and PLATT, J.^*

OPINION BY PLATT, J.:

Appellant, Brandon Denzel Charleston, appeals from the order dismissing his counseled first petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541–9546, without a hearing, as without merit. Appellant claims ineffective assistance of trial counsel. We affirm.

On August 25, 2009, a jury convicted Appellant of murder of the first degree, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2502(a), and possessing an instrument of crime with intent to employ it criminally (PIC), 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 907(a). Appellant's conviction arose out of his fatal shooting of William Stanton, a long-time friend, on June 15, 2008, at the home of Tracey Leslie, 2428 North 25th Street, in North Philadelphia.

At the time of the shooting, Appellant and Stanton were the only people in the house. Appellant claimed Stanton pulled a gun on him in an argument over the purchase of Xanax pills.¹ At trial, the Commonwealth acknowledged that Stanton was a drug dealer in the neighborhood. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/18/09, at 180–81).

Appellant, who testified on his own behalf at trial, maintained that he acted in self-defense.² ( See, e.g., N.T. Trial, 8/24/09, 41) (“I thought he was going to kill me. You know, I was fearing for my life.”); see also Commonwealth v. Charleston, 16 A.3d 505, 508 (Pa.Super.2011), appeal denied,612 Pa. 696, 30 A.3d 486 (2011) (“The evidence adduced at trial showed that Appellant shot and killed William Stanton (the victim). Appellant claimed, in a statement to the police and at trial, that he acted in self defense.”).

According to Appellant, the shooting occurred after he tried to bargain with Stanton for more Xanax pills with the same amount of money. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/24/09, at 38–39; 71–73). He claimed that Stanton pulled a handgun, and the two struggled over the weapon. ( See id. at 40–41). Appellant admitted he shot Stanton three times. ( Id. at 42) (“You know, pow, pow, pow. It wasn't drawn out like, you know, it happened and then it happened and happened. It happened all at once. It happened all at once.”). Appellant testified that he left the house and threw the gun into a sewer outside the house. ( See id. at 44). However, the handgun was never recovered.

Stanton received three gunshot wounds: a horizontal wound to the chest, a downward wound to the right lower part of the abdomen, and a downward wound to the thigh exiting out the side of the right knee. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/21/09, at 79–80). When Tracey Leslie returned to his house he found Stanton lying on the floor face down. He called 911. Stanton was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital at 3:46 p.m. on the same day by Dr. Julie Toto. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/21/09, at 68).

About a month later, on July 16, 2008, while the police were investigating an unrelated

[94 A.3d 1016]

gang murder, the mother of the victim in this case, Clara Stanton, approached Officer Anthony Soliman and told him that the man he was interviewing in the police car, Appellant, had shot her son, William Stanton. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/20/09, at 61, 171–72). Officer Soliman asked Appellant if he knew anything about William Stanton. He said “[N]o, I don't.” ( Id. at 176).

Officer Soliman transported Appellant to the Homicide Unit where detectives determined that he could not be interviewed because he was intoxicated. ( See id. at 177; N.T. Trial, 8/21/09, at 150). Homicide Detective Greg Singleton interviewed Appellant the next day. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/21/09, at 151). After receiving Miranda³ warnings, Appellant gave a statement to Detective Singleton and his partner Detective Dove, which he then read and signed.⁴ ( See id. at 168–69). As already noted, Appellant claimed self-defense. The statement was read into the trial record. ( See id. at 168) (“It was self defense. It's not like I pointed it at him and shot him or nothing like that.”).

At trial, after Appellant's direct testimony, on cross-examination the Commonwealth established numerous inconsistencies in his various versions of the incident, perhaps most notably his denial that he had any knowledge that the victim had been shot when he left the house. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/24/09, at 133) (“I couldn't believe that. I didn't even know that he was shot. I just tried to, you know, I thought he was shot because he wasn't answering me when I was talking to him, but I didn't know for sure that he was shot.”) (emphasis added).

During their investigation of the homicide the police determined that Ms. Stanton's belief that Appellant had shot her son, which prompted her to alert the police, stemmed from a general understanding in the neighborhood, or “word on the street.” (N.T. Trial, 8/20/09, at 130; see also id. at 180).

At trial, the Commonwealth also attempted to elicit specific testimony from Nashua Sanders, a relative of Ms. Stanton's neighbors, that she had told Ms. Stanton that Appellant, with whom she was friends, had told her a week before the murder that he planned to rob William Stanton. However, on the stand, Ms. Sanders denied making the statement, or speaking at all with Ms. Stanton, beyond giving her condolences.⁵ ( See id. at 35).

Ms. Stanton testified that on the day her son was killed he had between $600 to $650 on his person. ( See id. at 45). He was also carrying a black wallet and a Pennsylvania ID card. ( See id. at 47). Ms. Stanton never saw these items again. ( See id.). Detective Kevin Judge testified that when he did a full body inspection of William Stanton for the homicide investigation at Temple University Hospital, he found Stanton's clothes, in a bag, a set of keys, a cell phone, and three dollars. ( See id. at 96).

Later in the trial the Commonwealth recalled Ms. Stanton. The trial court permitted Ms. Stanton to testify that Ms. Sanders had told her that Appellant told her (Ms. Sanders) that he planned to rob William Stanton, as a statement inconsistent with Ms. Sanders' denial at trial. ( See id. at 112). Immediately after Ms. Stanton completed her testimony, the trial

[94 A.3d 1017]

court gave the following cautionary instruction, sua sponte:

Ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the testimony that you just heard, I'm just going to give you an instruction and that evidence is not necessarily to be accepted for the truth of the statements made by Ms. Sanders to Ms. Stanton, okay. It doesn't—they were statements and you will be given additional instructions at the appropriate time.

Okay, next witness.

( Id. at 116).⁶

Dr. Sam Gulino, the Chief Medical Examiner for the City of Philadelphia, testified as an expert in forensic pathology for the Commonwealth. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/21/09, at 62–95). Dr. Gulino testified that, based on the nature of the wounds and the amount of soot from gunpowder residue on the clothing and the wounds, the wound to the chest was “within [a] range of eight inches,” ( id. at 78), the wound to the abdomen in the pelvic region a greater distance, but less than three feet, ( see id.), and the wound to the thigh, two feet or more ( see id. at 79). Mr. Gamal Emira, testifying without objection as an expert in forensic science, reached similar conclusions about the range of fire for the three wounds. ( See id. at 106–10).

Officer Louis Grandizio, of the Philadelphia Police Firearms Identification Unit testified for the Commonwealth as an expert in ballistics evidence, by agreement of defense counsel. ( See id., at 116–46). Officer Grandizio testified that for a handgun to fire three times, the trigger would have to be pulled three separate times. ( See id. at 128). In his expert opinion, because of the six to seven pounds of pressure required to pull the trigger, the ejection of the spent cartridge, and the natural recoil of the handgun, it could not have fired three or four times in rapid succession during a struggle for possession, as maintained by the defense. ( See id. at 129–131). Officer Grandizio testified that in his expert opinion, in the kind of struggle described by the defendant, the gun would probably jam after the first round was fired. ( See id. at 132).

In his closing argument, defense counsel stressed that his client was “quite candid with you in terms of what happened[.]” (N.T. Trial, 8/24/09, at 156). Counsel also noted that “despite the fact that he [Appellant] didn't have to say nothing [sic] was eager to see him [Homicide Detective Greg Singleton] and was eager to tell just what happened.” ( Id. at 157). Similarly, trial counsel argued that (“[Appellant] had nothing to hide. And he [Appellant] told [Detective Singleton] just what happened.”). ( Id. at 158).

During closing argument for the Commonwealth, the prosecutor first compared the credibility of the testimony of Nashua Sanders to that of Clara Stanton, the victim's mother. ( See id. at 168–69). The prosecutor also challenged Appellant's credibility by highlighting some of the inconsistencies in his testimony, specifically characterizing his claim of self-defense as a “joke,” “nonsense,” and “potentially some of the craziest testimony that has been heard in this city.” ( Id. at 192–93).

The trial court instructed the jury that evidence of Appellant's prior criminal convictions, introduced by stipulation, ( see id. at 145–46), was not evidence of Appellant's guilt, but could be used by the jury to help them judge the credibility and weight of the testimony given by him at trial. ( See id. at 227).

On August 25, 2009, the jury convicted Appellant of murder of the first degree,

[94 A.3d 1018]

and possession of an instrument of crime with intent. ( See N.T. Trial, 8/25/09, at 8; see also Verdict...