Commonwealth v. Green

• Decision Date: 16 March 2022
• Docket Number: 372 EDA 2021
• Citation: 273 A.3d 1080
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Vyante Anton GREEN, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

273 A.3d 1080

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania

v.Vyante Anton GREEN, Appellant

No. 372 EDA 2021

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued January 25, 2022

Filed March 16, 2022

Reargument Denied May 26, 2022

Zak T. Goldstein, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Robert Eyer, Easton, for appellant.

Heather F. Gallagher, District Attorney, Allentown, for Commonwealth, appellee.

James B. Martin, Assistant District Attorney, Allentown, for Commonwealth, appellee.

BEFORE: STABILE, J., DUBOW, J., and McCAFFERY, J.

OPINION BY STABILE, J.:

Appellant, Vyante Green, appeals from the judgment of sentence imposed on August 26, 2020 in the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County following his conviction of, inter alia , first-degree murder (Kenyatta Eutsey), attempted criminal homicide (Dimitri Joseph), and aggravated assault (Dimitri Joseph),¹ all stemming from events that occurred shortly after midnight on January 1, 2018 at a New Year's Eve party. Appellant contends the trial court erred when it refused to instruct the jury on self-defense and on voluntary manslaughter. Because we conclude the trial court erred when it denied the voluntary manslaughter ("imperfect self-defense") instruction, we vacate Appellant's judgment of sentence and remand for a new trial.

The trial court provided a thorough summary of evidence presented at Appellant's trial, complete with references to and excerpts from the notes of testimony. See Trial Court Opinion, 3/26/21, at 2-9. Briefly, Appellant and his victims, Kenyatta Eutsey ("Eutsey") and Dimitri Joseph ("Joseph"), were among the 75 to 100 people who attended a New Year's Eve party at an Airbnb property in Allentown. Appellant had no prior contact with Eutsey or Joseph, who were cousins. All three had been drinking for some time when Eutsey decided he wanted to take someone's phone. He walked up to Appellant, who had a bottle of Hennessey (cognac) in one hand and his phone in the other. Eutsey, who was much larger than Appellant, "snatched" the phone from Appellant and began going through it. When Appellant demanded that Eutsey return the phone, Eutsey began making disparaging remarks about Appellant and said he would not return the phone. In response, Appellant pulled a .32 caliber revolver from his right pocket and demanded his phone. When Eutsey refused and tried to "fake swing or tr[ied] to swing" at Appellant, Appellant fired the revolver. Notes of Testimony ("N.T."), Volume III, at 127, 164-65. As Eutsey was falling to the floor, Appellant fired a second shot.

Appellant then noticed Joseph heading in his direction. He saw Joseph's hand near the waistband of his pants and, rather than "wait to get shot[,] I turned around and started firing at the second individual." Id. at 129.

Eutsey died from his wounds. Joseph was severely injured. Appellant fled the scene and made his way to a friend's home and then to an after-hours establishment. The following morning, he discarded his clothes and the gun. A few days later, he fled the state to New York where he remained for a week or two. He was arrested on May 23, 2018.

Following Appellant's February 2020 jury trial, at which he testified, Appellant was found guilty as noted above. A pre-sentence investigation report was ordered and Appellant proceeded to a sentencing hearing on August 26, 2020. The trial court imposed a mandatory sentence of life in prison on the first-degree murder conviction and also sentenced Appellant in the standard range to a consecutive term of 20 to 40 years in prison for attempted homicide.

Post-sentence motions were denied on December 1, 2020 after a hearing. This timely appeal followed. Both Appellant and the trial court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

On appeal, Appellant asks us to consider three issues, which we have reordered for ease of disposition as follows:

1. Whether Appellant's [issues relating to jury instructions] are preserved for purposes of appellate review despite defense counsel's failure to object at the end of the charge?

2. Whether the trial court erred in making its own credibility determinations and denying Appellant's request for a self-defense instruction and precluding trial counsel from arguing self-defense where [Appellant] explicitly testified that he acted to defend himself from two men who robbed him of his phone, threatened him, tried to punch him, and were potentially armed?

3. Whether the trial court erred in making its own credibility determinations and denying Appellant's request for a voluntary manslaughter instruction and precluding trial counsel from arguing imperfect self-defense where [Appellant] explicitly testified that he acted to defend himself from two strangers who robbed him of his phone, threatened him, tried to punch him, and appeared to be armed?

Appellant's Brief at vi.

In his first issue, Appellant contends he preserved his jury instruction claims despite counsel's failure to object on the record at the end of the trial court's charge to the jury. The trial court's Rule 1925(a) opinion is silent as to this matter, suggesting that the trial court recognized the issue was preserved based on statements it made on the record during charging conferences on two consecutive days. The Commonwealth, on the other hand, asserts the claims are waived because counsel did not renew his request for jury instructions or object after the trial court concluded its charge. Commonwealth Brief at 12-14 (citing, inter alia , Commonwealth v. Pressley , 584 Pa. 624, 887 A.2d 220 (2005) ).

In Pressley , defense counsel submitted two proposed points for charge that the trial court rejected on the record prior to closing arguments. The first, a missing evidence charge, was rejected because the documents in question were provided to the defense during discovery. Id. at 222. The second, a simple assault charge, was rejected because the defendant had not been charged with simple assault. Id. Defense counsel neither took an exception nor lodged an objection at the time of the rulings or following the charge. Id. at 225. In other words, there is no indication that counsel did anything more than merely submit proposed points that the trial court denied.

The Court announced:

We hold that under Criminal Procedural Rules 603 and 647(B), the mere submission and subsequent denial of proposed points for charge that are inconsistent with or omitted from the instructions actually given will not suffice to preserve an issue, absent a specific objection or exception to the charge or the trial court's ruling respecting the points.

Id.

We acknowledge that Appellant's counsel did not object to the charge or request any supplemental instructions when asked by the trial court at the conclusion of its charge to the jury. However, counsel did not merely submit proposed points for charge that were denied by the trial court, as was the case in Pressley . Rather, on two separate days, counsel argued for self-defense and voluntary manslaughter charges. The record clearly reflects "the trial court's ruling respecting the points," id. at 225, when it rejected counsel's request for those instructions and assured counsel on both days that the issues were preserved for appeal. See N.T, Vol. III, at 196; Vol. IV at 18. Under the circumstances, while renewing his objections to the twice-rejected points for charge at the end of the jury charge would have eliminated the need for this Court to address the claim of waiver, we do not find that preserving his objections on the record during the charging conferences, rather than at the end of the jury charge, where the trial court expressly informs counsel his objections were preserved, runs afoul of Pressley or Rule 647(B).² Therefore, we decline to find Appellant's issues waived.

With regard to Appellant's challenges to the denial of jury instructions, we initially note:

Our standard of review in regard to a trial court's decisions on jury instructions is well-settled: "[O]ur standard of review when considering the denial of jury instructions is one of deference—an appellate court will reverse a court's decision only when it abused its discretion or committed an error of law." Commonwealth v. Galvin , 603 Pa. 625, 651, 985 A.2d 783, [798-99] (2009).

Commonwealth v. Cannavo , 199 A.3d 1282, 1286 (Pa. Super. 2018), appeal denied , 217 A.3d 180 (Pa. 2019). Further, "[t]the trial court is not required to give every charge that is requested by the parties and its refusal to give a requested charge does not require reversal unless the Appellant was prejudiced by that refusal." Commonwealth v. Sandusky , 77 A.3d 663, 667 (Pa. Super. 2013) (quoting Commonwealth v. Thomas , 904 A.2d 964, 970 (Pa. Super. 2006) (citation omitted)).

In the first of his two claims relating to jury instructions, Appellant contends the trial court erred when it refused to instruct the jury on self-defense. As this Court recently reiterated:

Self-defense is a complete defense to a homicide charge if 1) the defendant reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury and that it was necessary to use deadly [force] to prevent such harm; 2) the defendant did not provoke the threat that resulted in the slaying; and 3) the defendant did not violate a duty to retreat. 18 Pa.C.S. § 505(b)(2) ; Commonwealth v. Sepulveda , 618 Pa. 262, 55 A.3d 1108, 1124 (2012) ; Commonwealth v. Mouzon , 617 Pa. 527, 53 A.3d 738, 740 (2012) ; [ Commonwealth v. Knox , 219 A.3d 186, 196 (Pa. Super. 2019) ]. Where the defendant has introduced evidence of self-defense, the burden is on the Commonwealth to disprove the self-defense claim beyond a reasonable doubt by proving that at least one of those three elements is absent. Sepulveda , 55 A.3d at 1124 ; Knox , 219 A.3d at 196 ; [Commonwealth v.] Patterson , 180 A.3d [1217, 1231 (Pa. Super. 2018)].

Commonwealth v. Jones , 271 A.3d 452, 458 (Pa. Super. December 16, 2021).

As the Commonwealth correctly recognizes, "Before the issue of self-defense may be submitted to a jury for consideration,...