Commonwealth v. Fulton

• Citation: 830 A.2d 567,574 Pa. 282
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Curtis FULTON, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 19 August 2003
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

830 A.2d 567

574 Pa. 282

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Curtis FULTON, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted August 31, 2001.

Decided August 19, 2003.

Ronald Greenblatt, for Curtis Fulton, Appellant.

Hugh J. Burns, Philadelphia, for the Com. of Pa, Appellee.

Before: CAPPY, C.J., and CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN, SAYLOR, EAKIN and LAMB, JJ.

OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

Justice CASTILLE.

This Court granted discretionary review of this matter arising under the Post Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA"), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 et seq., to resolve two questions: (1) whether trial counsel was ineffective in failing to present evidence of appellant's good character for truthfulness; and (2) whether the Superior Court erred in failing to remand this matter for the PCRA court to file an opinion reflecting its independent consideration of the counsel ineffectiveness claim. This Court resolved the second question in an opinion filed on May 30, 2002, in which we remanded the matter to the PCRA court to file an opinion. Commonwealth v. Fulton, ___ A.2d ___, 2002 WL 1160755 (Pa. May 30, 2002). We now address the ineffectiveness issue. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that no relief is due because the Commonwealth did not impeach appellant's reputation for truthfulness, but rather merely challenged the veracity of his testimony in this case; accordingly, appellant's underlying claim that evidence of his good reputation for telling the truth was admissible to rebut the Commonwealth's attack on his truthful character lacks arguable merit. We therefore affirm the order of the Superior Court.

On September 30, 1993, a jury convicted appellant of rape, three counts of robbery, three counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, conspiracy and possessing an instrument of crime, and appellant was subsequently sentenced to an aggregate term of twenty to forty years' imprisonment.¹ The Commonwealth's evidence against appellant consisted primarily of the testimony of victims O.H., M.H. and L.S. These female victims testified that on the night of October 4, 1991, at approximately 10:30 p.m., they were walking together through a deserted schoolyard on the way to M.H.'s mother's house with M.H's one-year old child, who was in a stroller, when they became aware that two men were following them. One of these men confronted the women, brandished a gun and announced "this is a stickup." The second man then approached the victims from behind and ordered them to go to a darkened stairway on the side of the school. The victims complied, and once they were in the stairway, they were ordered to hand over their money and jewelry to the two men. The man who had initially brandished a gun then fled the scene, but the second man remained. He ordered the women to lie down on their stomachs and then forced each woman to perform oral sex on him. He then raped and sodomized L.S. O.H. and M.H. identified appellant as the man who robbed and sexually assaulted them.

Appellant presented an alibi defense. Appellant testified that at some time prior to nightfall on October 4, 1991, he attempted to enter his house but was unable to do so because the house was locked, he did not have a key and no one else was at home. He then went across the street to the home of Titus Lawhorn. Appellant testified that he spent the entire night at Lawhorn's house drinking beer and socializing and did not leave the house until some time between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. on October 5. Lawhorn, Lawhorn's fiancee, Rene Washington, and Tywanda Butler also testified on appellant's behalf that appellant spent the entire night of the crimes at Lawhorn's home.

On direct appeal, the Superior Court affirmed the trial court's judgment of sentence. Commonwealth v. Fulton, 448 Pa.Super. 651, 671 A.2d 768 (1995) (unpublished opinion). This Court denied allowance of appeal. 544 Pa. 668, 677 A.2d 838 (1996). Appellant then filed a pro se petition for relief under the PCRA. New counsel was appointed and amended petitions were filed. The PCRA court dismissed appellant's PCRA petition without a hearing. After appellant appealed to the Superior Court, the PCRA court filed a brief opinion in which it failed to articulate its independent view of why summary dismissal was appropriate, but instead adopted the "discussion" of the issues set forth by the Commonwealth in its Motion to Dismiss "as controlling."

A divided panel of the Superior Court affirmed the dismissal of the PCRA petition in a memorandum opinion, with now President Judge Del Sole dissenting. Regarding the PCRA court's wholesale adoption of the Commonwealth's Motion to Dismiss, the Superior Court acknowledged the rule announced in the capital case of Commonwealth v. (Roy) Williams, 557 Pa.207, 732 A.2d 1167 (1999), requiring a PCRA court to provide an independent expression of its reasons for summarily dismissing a PCRA petition, but concluded that this rule was inapplicable to non-capital cases. On the question of whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present evidence of appellant's alleged good reputation for truthfulness, the panel majority noted that character evidence of the defendant's truthfulness is admissible only if: (1) the character trait of truthfulness is implicated by the elements of the charged offenses; or (2) the defendant's character for truthfulness was attacked by evidence of bad reputation. Finding neither circumstance to be implicated here, the panel majority concluded that character evidence of truthfulness would not have been admissible and, therefore, counsel was not ineffective for failing to pursue and present such evidence. Judge Del Sole dissented on both the procedural question and the reputation evidence question. The dissent concluded that the case should have been remanded for "an independent judicial analysis and opinion." In addition, Judge Del Sole noted that he would have deemed evidence of appellant's character for truthfulness admissible because credibility was of paramount importance at appellant's trial.

In our prior opinion in this case, we resolved the procedural issue by holding that the (Roy) Williams rule applies to non-capital criminal cases. Consequently, this Court remanded the matter to the PCRA court for preparation of an independent opinion on the ineffectiveness question. This opinion has since been filed, and thus we turn to the merits of the ineffectiveness claim.

Appellant asserts that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to present evidence of his good character for truthfulness.² Specifically, appellant faults trial counsel for failing to introduce the testimony of his brother, Ronald Fulton, his mother, Floran Fulton, his sister, Suzette Williams, and his brother-in-law, Anthony Williams, who, appellant alleges, would have testified that they know appellant to have a good reputation in the community for truthfulness. Appellant contends that this evidence of his reputation for truthfulness was admissible to rebut the Commonwealth's impeachment of his character for telling the truth. Appellant notes that the eyewitness testimony of the complainants directly contradicted his testimony that he did not attack the victims and that he was somewhere other than the scene of the crimes at the time they occurred. Appellant further notes that the prosecutor aggressively cross-examined him and challenged his veracity in her closing argument. Appellant contends that the complainants' testimony and the prosecutor's attacks on the truthfulness of his testimony placed his character for truthfulness at issue. In this situation, appellant argues, "well-settled controlling authorit[ies]"—in particular, two decisions of this Court, Commonwealth v. Neely, 522 Pa. 236, 561 A.2d 1 (1989), and Commonwealth v. Weiss, 530 Pa. 1, 606 A.2d 439 (1992)—provide that "evidence that the defendant has a good reputation for truthfulness is relevant and admissible." Brief for Appellant at 13. In addition, appellant contends that since his trial counsel swore in an affidavit filed with the PCRA court that he did not even consider calling witnesses to testify as to appellant's good reputation for truthfulness, trial counsel could not have had a reasonable basis for failing to present such evidence. Finally, appellant asserts that he was prejudiced by trial counsel's alleged ineffectiveness because "[t]here is no question that counsel's failure to present character evidence under these circumstances `undermined [his] chances of instilling reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury.'" Brief for Appellant at 20 (quoting Weiss, 606 A.2d at 443).

The Commonwealth responds that appellant's ineffectiveness claim is waived and, in any event, is meritless. The Commonwealth argues that this claim could have been raised on direct appeal but was not, and the allegation is thus waived for purposes of the PCRA. On the merits, the Commonwealth contends that the law in Pennsylvania has long been that a defendant in a criminal case may not offer evidence of his good character for truthfulness to bolster his credibility unless his character for truthfulness has first been attacked by the prosecution. The Commonwealth asserts that, although the prosecution contested the truthfulness of appellant's testimony regarding his actions on the night of the crimes, at no point did the prosecution assail appellant's character or reputation for truthfulness generally. Thus, the Commonwealth argues that the prosecution did not open the door to the introduction of evidence of appellant's alleged good reputation for truthfulness and such evidence was therefore inadmissible. Because this evidence would have been inadmissible, the Commonwealth asserts that trial counsel was not ineffective.³

In reviewing the trial court's denial of PCRA relief, our standard of review is limited to whether the trial court's determination is supported by evidence of record and whether it is free of...