Commonwealth v. Johnson
| Docket Number | 67 WDA 2022,68 WDA 2022,J-A02009-23 |
| Decision Date | 06 June 2023 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. AARON ERNEST JOHNSON Appellant COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. AARON ERNEST JOHNSON Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Aaron Ernest Johnson appeals from his aggregate judgment of sentence of thirty-eight years and four months to seventy-six years and eight months of incarceration imposed after a jury convicted him of, inter alia, drug delivery resulting in death, corrupt organizations, and conspiracy-delivery of a controlled substance. We affirm.
We glean the following factual history of this case from the certified record.[1] William Stout ("Decedent") suffered from a heroin addiction. Sadly, but all too unsurprisingly, his addiction led to criminal activity and incarceration followed by struggles with recovery. In 2018, Decedent was on state parole. After Tanya Brooks, his paramour and one-time fiancé, gave him an ultimatum about staying clean, Decedent moved into an apartment above the stand-alone garage at the home of Ms. Brooks's parents. As Ms. Brooks lived with her parents, this proximity was designed to allow the couple to "reestablish trust and boundaries." N.T. Trial, 7/29/20, at 61. Decedent's normal routine was to go to his job at Commodore Homes, return to the apartment, eat, shower, and then spend the evening on the couch watching television or to come into the house to see what the family was doing. Id. at 69-70.
On the morning of November 19, 2018, Decedent called his co-worker, Spencer Rudolph, at 6:39 a.m. before clocking in at work at 6:53 a.m. Id. at 179. Rudolph, who had clocked in at 6:46, met Decedent in the workplace bathroom before their 7:00 shifts and sold Decedent five stamp bags of heroin. Id. at 184. Decedent clocked out of work at 4:37 p.m. and parked his truck outside his apartment. Id. at 68-71, 178. At approximately 5:15, Decedent came into the house to speak with Ms. Brooks about Thanksgiving, exhibiting no signs of being under the influence of drugs. Id. at 70, 84. Since she was rushing to get her son to basketball practice, she told Decedent that she would stop by the apartment later to talk about it. Id. at 66. As she was leaving, Ms. Brooks saw Decedent's parked truck outside and could see him sitting on the couch through the open shade of his apartment's window.
When Ms. Brooks did not feel well that evening, she texted Decedent at 9:32 p.m. to let him know that she was not going to come visit him after all. Decedent did not respond to that message or two others she sent between then and 11:27 p.m. Ms. Brooks looked out her window several times that night and saw that the light was still on, but did not see Decedent in the window, so she supposed he fell asleep on the couch. Id. at 72-75. Neither Ms. Brooks nor her father saw anyone come or go from Decedent's apartment that night. Id. at 75, 97-98.
The next morning, Decedent's truck was still parked in his spot when he should have been at work. Ms. Brooks went upstairs to the apartment where the shade was still open, the television was on, and water was running in the bathtub.[2] Upon entering the bathroom, she discovered Decedent naked in the bathtub. He was dead. Id. at 78. The police were summoned and found no obvious cause of death and no drugs in the apartment aside from a prescription for Gabapentin. Id. at 133. Nor were any text or voicemail messages concerning drugs found on his phone. Id. at 165. Accordingly, the police did not begin a criminal investigation until a toxicology report revealed on January 28, 2019, that Decedent had died from a fentanyl overdose.[3] Id. at 107-09, 162-63.
Clarion County Police Chief William Peck, who was in charge of the local drug task force, reexamined Decedent's contacts in his cell phone. The name "Spencer," which the phone indicated Decedent had called the day before he was found dead, overlapped with a tip Chief Peck had received a few days prior. Chief Peck had noted Rudolph's name and number on a scrap of paper as an individual reportedly selling heroin in Shippenville. Id. at 166-67. Chief Peck thus focused the investigation on Rudolph, engaging in surveillance, conducting a controlled buy, and ultimately executing a search warrant at Rudolph's residence on February 13, 2019. Id. at 169.
At a subsequent interview, Rudolph, himself addicted to opiates, ultimately admitted to selling the heroin to Decedent on Monday, November 19, 2018. Id. at 184; N.T. Trial, 7/30/20, at 89. Rudolph indicated that he had obtained the plain, unmarked stamp bags that he sold to Decedent from Joseph Hoffman in Brockway, Jefferson County, two days prior, on Saturday, November 17, 2018. See N.T. Trial, 7/29/20, at 185. Video footage later obtained from the Sheetz in Brockway confirmed this exchange. Id. at 186-92. Rudolph stated, and Decedent's phone log corroborated, that he had called Decedent on his way back to Clarion County with the drugs. Id. at 193-94.
Rudolph further explained that, when Hoffman himself had been arrested and jailed, Hoffman's supplier, William Fourness of Elk County, contacted Rudolph to suggest that Rudolph begin obtaining the drugs directly from Fourness. Id. at 175, 205. Rudolph, representing that he could obtain more heroin from Fourness, agreed to assist the police in setting up a "buy-bust" using Rudolph's phone, which resulted in the procurement of heroin containing fentanyl. Id. at 199-209. Chief Peck learned that the Pennsylvania State Police had also obtained fentanyl-laced heroin from Fourness in a controlled buy that occurred on November 20, 2018. Id. at 209.
When interviewed by Chief Peck, Fourness identified Appellant as his heroin supplier. Id. at 210-13. Fourness became connected with Appellant in the late summer of 2018. While Fourness briefly used a different dealer in October, by November Appellant was his exclusive source of heroin. See N.T. Trial, 7/30/20, at 113, 141-43. Fourness indicated that the exclusivity was reciprocal: "Me and my wife and [Appellant] all came to an agreement that as long as I maintain my business as I did and continue to bring [Appellant] money as I did, that he would not give [to] anybody besides us." Id. at 155.
The criminal enterprise was as follows. While Fourness sometimes personally met with Appellant to obtain the drugs, in most instances he arranged for others to retrieve the contraband from Appellant in Monroeville, outside Pittsburgh in Allegheny County. Id. at 114. Fourness utilized the services of drug users who were willing to work for drugs and a small amount of cash. He would also supply them drugs on consignment to sell to third parties and return a percentage of the proceeds. Id. at 118-20.
Fourness did not want his dealers to know how to contact Appellant directly, as they might decide to cut out Fourness as the middleman. Id. at 118. Instead, only he would call, text, or Facetime Appellant to arrange the place for the delivery. Once Fourness's runners were at the set location, Fourness would advise Appellant they were there and what they were driving. Id. at 116. Sometimes the runners would pay Appellant for the drugs, other times Fourness would wire the money to Appellant through Western Union.[4]Id. at 125. Hoffman was Fourness's initial choice to meet with Appellant in Monroeville, doing so on about a dozen occasions before Hoffman was arrested. After Hoffman was arrested, a mutual friend suggested Rudolph as a replacement, who made the trip approximately six times. Id. at 121-22. When Rudolph was unavailable, he utilized Ryan Gleixner "to help me continue my day-to-day operations." Id. at 124.
Chief Peck also went to the Elk County Jail to interview Hoffman. See N.T. Trial, 7/29/20, at 216. Hoffman confirmed Fourness's description of the workings of the operation. Namely, the arrangement was that Fourness would send him to meet Appellant, whom he knew only as "Smooth," in Monroeville. Hoffman would then drive the drugs back to Fourness in Elk County. See id. at 216-17; N.T. Trial, 7/30/20, at 168-71.
Hoffman had been arrested on November 24, 2018, when he was found unconscious in his car while it was parked in a public parking lot, still running. See N.T. Trial, 7/30/20, at 168-71. Hoffman's car contained packets of fentanyl that Hoffman had obtained for Fourness from Appellant at a Sheetz in Monroeville on November 21, 2018. Id. at 174-76. Police were able to retrieve footage from security cameras to confirm this meeting. Id. at 170-71. Hoffman further indicated that, on November 17, 2018, he had procured heroin from Appellant and sold it to Rudolph.[5] Id. at 182.
Gleixner also confirmed his role in the operation, i.e., getting money from Fourness to buy drugs from Appellant in Monroeville, usually at the Sheetz, taking them back to Fourness, and being permitted to keep some for his own use.[6] Id. at 203-04. One time, Appellant met Gleixner at the Sheetz but had him follow Appellant back to his house a few miles away to retrieve the drugs from the basement. Id. at 206. Ultimately, Gleixner cooperated with the police by directing Chief Peck and a state trooper to Appellant's house at 331 Noel Drive. Id. at 210; N.T. Trial. 7/29/20, at 230.
Chief Peck worked with the Monroeville police to conduct surveillance of that residence in the beginning of March 2019. Appellant utilized two vehicles to come and go from the residence, a Jeep that was registered to Appellant, depicted...
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