Commonwealth v. Rivera, No. 2101 EDA 2019
Decision Date | 25 August 2020 |
Docket Number | No. 2101 EDA 2019 |
Citation | 238 A.3d 482 |
Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Waldemar RIVERA, Appellant |
Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Glennis L. Clark, Allentown, for appellant.
James B. Martin, Assistant District Attorney, Allentown, for Commonwealth, appellee.
Heather F. Gallagher, Assistant District Attorney, Allentown, for Commonwealth, appellee.
Waldemar Rivera (Appellant) appeals from the March 1, 2019 judgment of sentence1 imposed after a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder,2 robbery, burglary, and three counts of conspiracy (second-degree murder; robbery; burglary). Upon review, we vacate Appellant's convictions and sentences for conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit burglary, and affirm his judgment of sentence in all other respects.
We begin with the following factual summary provided by the trial court.
. The testimony placed the gang of thieves’ gun in the possession of [Appellant]. The group fled on foot with [Victim's] gun, a samurai sword, cash, and some marijuana.
Surveillance photos and video were recovered from nearby alleyways confirming the presence of all conspirators. [Victim's] handgun was turned in to the police by [Appellant's] mother a few months after the robbery. The .380 caliber firearm used to murder [Victim] was never recovered.
[Appellant] was arrested and interviewed on August 16, 2017, after being provided with his Miranda[3
] warnings. [Appellant] admitted to breaking and entering the residence and participating in the robbery of [Victim]. However, [Appellant] claimed [ ] Eanes had the gun and alleged that he got nothing from the robbery. [Appellant] asserts that he did not shoot [Victim].
Trial Court Opinion, 6/21/2019, at 3-4 (footnotes omitted).
Based on the foregoing, Appellant was charged with one count each of criminal homicide, robbery, and burglary, and three counts of conspiracy (criminal homicide; robbery; burglary). Appellant proceeded to a jury trial from February 26, 2019 to March 1, 2019. The jury heard testimony from, inter alia , Navarro, Eanes, and Vargas. During trial, Appellant attempted unsuccessfully to locate Victim's daughter in order to call her as a defense witness. Therefore, Appellant sought to introduce her videotaped interview with police, which occurred a few hours after Victim's death, based on her being an unavailable witness and the interview qualifying under either the excited-utterance or present-sense-impression exceptions to the rule against hearsay. See N.T., 2/28/2019, at 100-04. The trial court denied Appellant's request, concluding that Victim's daughter was not unavailable for purposes of the hearsay rule, and regardless, the interview did not fall within either exception. Id. at 107-08.
On March 1, 2019, the jury found Appellant guilty as indicated above.4 Appellant was sentenced that same day to the following terms of incarceration: life imprisonment without parole for second-degree murder; 10 to 20 years for robbery; 10 to 20 years for burglary; 20 to 40 years for conspiracy to commit criminal homicide;5 10 to 20 years for conspiracy to commit robbery; and 10 to 20 years for conspiracy to commit burglary. All sentences were set to run concurrently, except for the 10-to-20-year term of incarceration for conspiracy to commit robbery, which was ordered to run consecutively to the other five charges.
On March 6, 2019, Appellant filed a post-sentence motion, alleging that the felony-murder rule6 is unconstitutional, the evidence was insufficient and the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, the consecutive sentence was "excessive and unreasonable[,]" and the trial court erred in excluding the videotaped interview of Victim's daughter as hearsay not subject to an exception. Post-Sentence Motion, 3/6/2019, at 2. The trial court ordered Appellant and the Commonwealth to file briefs in response to Appellant's post-sentence motion. Order, 3/20/2019. The parties complied. On June 21, 2019, the trial court denied Appellant's post-sentence motion by order and opinion.
This timely filed notice of appeal followed.7 On appeal, Appellant raises the following issues.
We begin with Appellant's argument that the trial court erred in precluding the admission of the videotaped police interview of Victim's daughter. Appellant's Brief at 27.8 Specifically, Appellant avers that she was unavailable for purposes of the rule against hearsay, and her statements during the interview were admissible under either the excited-utterance or present-sense-impression exceptions. Appellant's Brief at 29-30.
We begin with our standard of review.
An appellate court's standard of review of a trial court's evidentiary rulings[,] which include rulings on the admission of hearsay[,] is abuse of discretion. However, whether a defendant has been denied his right to confront a witness under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the States via the Fourteenth Amendment, is a question of law, for which our standard of review is de novo and our scope of review is plenary.
In re N.C. , 629 Pa. 475, 105 A.3d 1199, 1210 (2014) (citations omitted).
Commonwealth v. Sandusky , 203 A.3d 1033, 1054 (Pa. Super. 2019) (citation and quotation marks omitted). At trial, Appellant argued Victim's daughter was unavailable and sought to introduce the statement under the present sense impression or excited utterance exception.
Pa.R.E. 804(a). If a witness is unavailable pursuant to subsection (a), the following types of statements will not be subject to exclusion by the rule against hearsay.
At the outset, even if we were to conclude that the trial court should have found Victim's daughter was unavailable, Appellant...
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