Commonwealth v. Clayton
| Decision Date | 20 November 1984 |
| Citation | 506 Pa. 24,483 A.2d 1345 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Willie CLAYTON, Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued April 9, 1984.
Samuel C. Stretton, West Chester, for appellant.
Robert B. Lawler, Chief, Appeals Div., Asst. Dist. Atty Philadelphia, Marion E. MacIntyre, Deputy Atty. Gen Harrisburg, for appellee.
Before NIX C.J., and LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT, HUTCHINSON, ZAPPALA and PAPADAKOS, JJ.
OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
This direct appeal arises from the March, 1982 jury trial of Appellant Willie Clayton for the shooting death and robbery of Earl Grice on May 26, 1980. Appellant was found guilty of murder of the first degree, robbery, and possession of an instrument of crime. The sentence of death was imposed by the jury on the murder charge. Consecutive sentences of imprisonment of ten to twenty years on the robbery charge and of two-and-one-half to five years on the weapon offense were imposed.
During pre-trial motions before the trial judge, Appellant's counsel requested that the charges be dismissed, claiming that the filing of the charges on September 17, 1981 was an unreasonable delay which prejudiced the Appellant in his defense and deprived him of due process of law. The motion was denied. [N.T. 311].
Extensive testimony was offered by the Commonwealth related to the police investigation which was conducted after the Grice murder. The testimony detailed the attempts made by the police to locate the Appellant who at first was known only as "Saleem". In December, 1980, the Appellant was arrested on fugitive charges in New York. He was finally returned to custody in Philadelphia in March, 1981 after resisting extradition. The Appellant was arrested and charged with the murder of Terrence Dougherty. While incarcerated and awaiting trial for the Dougherty murder, Appellant was charged with the Grice homicide.
Early in September, 1981, the police had questioned Roy Young. In this initial interview, Young revealed that the Appellant had discussed the Grice murder with him while they were imprisoned and had admitted killing Grice. There were no witnesses to the incident itself, but the police reinterviewed individuals who were present in the Quill and Scroll Bar on that day. The bar, which Grice had owned, was located beneath his apartment where the body was found. The investigators found the witnesses to be more cooperative in the subsequent interviews, which they attributed to the fact that the Appellant was in custody. Shortly thereafter, the Appellant was charged. The detectives testified that, prior to Young's statement, they felt that there was insufficient evidence to charge the Appellant with the Grice murder because there was no direct evidence to connect him with the crime.
Appellant argues in this appeal that he was prejudiced by the delay because the passage of time prevented him from recalling the events and hampered his ability to locate potential witnesses. The record discloses, however, that the Appellant's motion to dismiss was based solely upon the passage of time itself. This contention was specifically rejected in Commonwealth v. Daniels, 480 Pa. 340, 390 A.2d 172 (1978), wherein we held that the passage of time, without more, is insufficient to sustain a claim of deprivation of due process.
Appellant's assertions related to the effect of the delay on his memory and ability to locate witnesses are raised for the first time and will not be addressed. Although Appellant refers to the record to support his claim that a potential witness, Michael Buck, could not be located due to the delay, the record discloses that Appellant did not raise this as a basis for his due process argument. [N.T. 477-480]. Appellant's counsel requested that the prosecutor provide information of Buck's whereabouts because there were insufficient funds to hire an investigator to locate him. Counsel indicated that he was unsure whether Buck would be called as a defense witness. It is readily apparent that Buck was not a material witness who was lost to the defense due to the delay in filing the charges, as Appellant now claims. We find that the trial judge properly denied the motion to dismiss.
The Appellant claims that the trial court erred in failing to exclude evidence of two subsequent crimes which the Commonwealth presented to establish a common scheme, plan, or design. The Commonwealth was permitted to introduce evidence related to the shooting death of Terrence Dougherty on August 26, 1980, and the attempted murder of Thomas Felder on September 14, 1980 for this purpose. The trial judge concluded that the testimony was admissible and that its probative value outweighed the potential prejudicial effect. [N.T. 464-473].
Unrelated criminal conduct of a defendant generally is inadmissible to prove the commission of the crime for which he is being tried. Commonwealth v. Styles, 494 Pa. 524, 431 A.2d 978 (1981). As we stated, however, in Commonwealth v. Rose, 483 Pa. 382, 396 A.2d 1221, 1230 (1979),
, quoting Commonwealth v. Peterson, 453 Pa. 187, 197-8, 307 A.2d 264, 269 (1973).
We must determine, therefore, whether the evidence was properly admitted to establish identity or a common plan, scheme or design.
Evidence was introduced to establish that the Appellant knew each of the victims, that the crimes occurred within a limited geographical area, that Grice and Dougherty were drug dealers, and that Felder had been involved with drugs in the past.
Earl Grice's body was found on the couch in his living room. The apparent motive behind the crime was robbery. Witnesses who had seen Grice earlier testified that he had a large wad of bills in his pants' pocket. When his body was discovered, however, his pockets were ripped from his pants and emptied. An empty cash box was found open in the bedroom, and receipts had been thrown on the floor. The evidence established that his death resulted from a hard contact gun shot wound in the back of his head. Dr. Halbert Fillinger, the forensic pathologist who conducted the post-mortem examination, testified that a hard contact gunshot wound occurs when the front portion of the gun is touching the skin. [N.T. 1380]. A .38 caliber projectile was removed from Grice's head during an autopsy. The projectile was markedly distorted, however, so that no distinguishing markings could be identified. A pillow which had been used to muzzle the sound of the gunfire was found in the apartment. Although a search of the apartment revealed a fully loaded .38 caliber handgun and a pengun, the testimony of ballistics experts indicated that the fatal shot had not been fired from those weapons. The gun which was used to shoot Grice was never recovered.
The Commonwealth introduced testimony related to the circumstances surrounding the murder of Terrence Dougherty on August 26, 1980. Wendell Lewis discovered the body and informed the police of the death. He testified that he entered Dougherty's apartment and saw the body laying in a pool of blood. He recognized the body, but did not see the victim's face because a pillow was placed over the head. [N.T. 1606-1609]. Dr. Robert Catherman, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, conducted an on-scene examination at Dougherty's apartment on that date. [N.T. 1407]. Catherman observed the body lying face down in a prone position in the bedroom of the apartment. He noted a hard contact gunshot wound to the left side of the victim's head. The projectile, which was subsequently recovered from the body, was a base-jacketed .38 caliber bullet. [N.T. 1410, 1415]. As in the Grice murder, there were no eyewitnesses.
The substance of Thomas Felder's testimony was that Appellant and an unidentified man came to his apartment on September 14, 1980 ostensibly to purchase cocaine. Felder testified that he was not selling drugs at that time, but offered to make a telephone call for the Appellant to buy cocaine. They left the apartment to go to a phone booth. After the call was made, Appellant accompanied Felder back to his apartment on the pretense of having left something there. Appellant later came out of the bathroom carrying a .38 caliber handgun, grabbed him and forced him to lie on his bed. Appellant took money from Felder's pants' pocket and removed a gold chain from his neck. The two men bound his hands and feet and a pillow was placed over his head. The Appellant put the pillow to the gun and fired, but the gun did not go off. Another shot was fired into his back which knocked him off of the bed. When ...
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