Commonwealth v. Miller

• Decision Date: 28 December 2009
• Docket Number: No. 539 CAP,539 CAP
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Dennis MILLER, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

987 A.2d 638

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Dennis MILLER, Appellant.

No. 539 CAP

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted October 30, 2008.

Decided December 28, 2009.

Mary Elizabeth Hanssens, Samuel J.B. Angell, Defender Association of Philadelphia, for Dennis Miller.

Gerald P. Morano, Stuart B. Suss, Kelley Lynn Nelson, PA Office of Attorney General, Amy Zapp, Harrisburg, for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

BEFORE: CASTILLE, C.J., SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER, TODD, McCAFFERY, GREENSPAN, JJ.

OPINION

Justice GREENSPAN.

This is a capital appeal from an order entered by the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County denying Appellant Dennis Miller's request for relief pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 9541-9546. Appellant was sentenced to death following his convictions for first-degree murder, rape, indecent assault, recklessly endangering another person, possessing an instrument of crime, and flight to avoid apprehension. These charges arose out of the stabbing murder of Appellant's wife in November of 1995. We affirm.

Briefly, the facts underlying appellant's convictions are as follows. On November 18, 1995, Appellant and his wife, Sherry, left their two children, Barbara and Dennis, with Appellant's mother, Agnes Miller, and went to a local bar called Trib's Waystation where they drank some beer and ingested methamphetamine. During the course of the evening Appellant became visibly upset and angry when his wife spoke to other men or used her cell phone.¹ The couple left the bar at about

1:20 a.m.²

The next day, when Appellant and Sherry did not appear at Agnes Miller's home as planned, Ms. Miller became concerned, especially after no one answered the telephone at Appellant's residence. Ms. Miller twice drove to Appellant's home and observed that the doors to the residence were locked, no one answered the door, and that Sherry's car was not there. On November 20, 1995, after speaking to Sherry's mother and learning that she had not heard from Sherry, Ms. Miller filed a missing persons report with the Pennsylvania State Police. After the investigating trooper was unable to locate Appellant or his wife, he and other troopers went to their residence. Once there, they received permission from Ms. Miller to break into the residence. Upon doing so, they discovered the naked body of Sherry Miller lying on a bed in an upstairs bedroom. Her body was covered in blood, her legs were spread, her knees were bent, and there was a blood-covered pillow over her face. Upon discovering the body, the troopers left the residence to wait for a search warrant.

An autopsy of Sherry Miller's body indicated that she had died because she was stabbed over thirty times in her head, chest, arms, and hands. During the autopsy, the tip of a knife was retrieved from her shoulder. The knife from which the tip originated was found in a trash can. The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy concluded from the position of the body, defensive wounds on the victim's hands, the lack of blood below her waist, and the lack of seminal material outside her vagina that she had been subjected to intercourse at the time of her death.³

An investigation of the residence resulted in the seizure of evidence tying Appellant to the crime including Appellant's bloody palm print on the pillow found covering the victim's face, Appellant's bloody fingerprint on a bandage, and a bloody footprint belonging to Appellant. In addition, investigators noted that the box spring from the bed on which the victim was found was broken and that the murder weapon had a bloody thumbprint on it. While the thumbprint had several characteristics consistent with Appellant's thumbprint, it contained insufficient identifying markers to be positively identified as having been placed on the knife by Appellant. Police also found a note in the kitchen, in Appellant's handwriting, that read:

Now I hope some of Sherry's whore friends learn something from this. I didn't want for it to go this far, but you people don't understand what she put me through. Some know, but they don't want to say something about her. Everybody told her everything I did, but me, I had to find out for myself what she did. All of my so-called friends f___ me one way or another. I had no friends. And I wish I had more time to get even with some of you assholes. I just want to say that you, Larry Brown, I would have killed you, and you, Sean Smith, I told Donny one time before to tell you to leave her alone. I don't know if he did. And if he did, the next time somebody tells you something, you better do what they say. I would have got you too. I hope somebody in my family takes care of Barb, Dennis. I do love you all. I will see some of you in hell.

Appellant fled the area following the crime. He was apprehended six months later in Florida because of a tip authorities received following a report about the crime on the television show "America's Most Wanted."

Following the denial of a motion to suppress and the waiver of his right to a jury trial, Appellant's capital murder trial commenced in September of 1997. At trial, the Commonwealth presented, inter alia, the testimony of Michael Torres who for a time was Appellant's cellmate while he was incarcerated on the aggravated assault charge. Torres testified that Appellant often spoke of killing his wife and that on the day Appellant was released from prison he stated, "I'll be back for killing my wife." The Commonwealth also presented the testimony of forensic pathologist, Richard Callery, M.D., who testified that the victim died because of the numerous stab wounds she sustained, which caused severe internal bleeding. The doctor also opined that the victim died while being subjected to forcible intercourse. In his defense, Appellant presented the testimony of a witness who stated that Torres had fabricated his testimony. At the conclusion of the trial, the trial court found Appellant guilty of the above enumerated offenses.

After Appellant waived his right to a jury trial, a penalty hearing was held before the trial court. At the penalty hearing the Commonwealth presented evidence on two aggravating circumstances, namely, that Appellant committed the murder during the perpetration of a felony, in this case rape, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(6), and by means of torture, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(8). Appellant thereafter asserted that two mitigating circumstances applied: Appellant lacked the capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(e)(3), and the "catch-all provision," 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(e)(8). At the conclusion of the penalty hearing, the trial court found one aggravating circumstance, Section 9711(d)(6), and one mitigating circumstance, Section 9711(e)(3). Upon weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the trial court fixed the penalty at death. The court formally imposed that sentence on October 27, 1997, together with a consecutive sentence of ten to twenty years incarceration on the rape conviction.

Appellant appealed to this Court arguing that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress, the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions for rape and indecent assault, and the aggravating circumstance did not outweigh the mitigating circumstance. This Court affirmed the judgment of sentence on January 20, 1999. Commonwealth v. Dennis Miller, 555 Pa. 354, 724 A.2d 895 (1999). Appellant was represented by the same attorney at trial and on appeal.

On October 29, 1999, Appellant filed a pro se PCRA petition.⁴ The PCRA court entered an order on November 8, 1999, granting Appellant an emergency stay of his death sentence pending disposition of his request for relief under the PCRA. The PCRA court also appointed two attorneys to represent Appellant. On June 7, 2000, Appellant filed an amended petition. He thereafter filed several supplemental petitions and requests for discovery, which included a request for high-resolution scans of the negatives of the photographs of the crime scene. The PCRA court denied Appellant's request for the high-resolution scan of the negatives on July 19, 2002.

On October 17, 2003, the Commonwealth filed its answer and a pre-hearing memorandum requesting that the PCRA court dismiss some of Appellant's claims because they had been previously litigated. On December 31, 2004, the PCRA court, in a written opinion and order, granted in part and denied in part the Commonwealth's request.

An evidentiary hearing was conducted in late October 2003. In the months following the hearing, Appellant filed several motions asking permission to supplement the record with the victim's medical records and documents relating to Michael Torres. The PCRA court denied both requests in written orders filed January 19, 2005, and November 30, 2005. The Appellant also sought permission to present the testimony of Dr. Callery, the forensic pathologist who testified at trial. Appellant sought to present the doctor's testimony to clarify his trial testimony with respect to whether the victim had been raped. Following a hearing, Appellant's request was denied. On June 30, 2007, the PCRA court issued an opinion and order denying Appellant post-conviction collateral relief (PCRA Court Opinion, 6/30/07). Appellant thereafter timely filed the instant appeal.⁵ The PCRA Court requested a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) Statement, and on November 2, 2007, the court issued a Rule 1925(a) Opinion (PCRA Court Opinion, 11/2/07).

The standard of review applicable to appeals from the denial of PCRA relief requires this Court to ascertain whether the PCRA court's rulings are supported by the record and free of legal error. Commonwealth v. Fahy, 598 Pa. 584, 959 A.2d 312, 316 (2008); Commonwealth v. Stokes, 598 Pa. 574, 959 A.2d 306, 309 (2008). "In order to be eligible for PCRA relief, [a petitioner] must prove by a preponderance of the...