Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 210 EDA 2017

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
Citation174 A.3d 1130
Docket NumberNo. 210 EDA 2017,210 EDA 2017
Parties COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Miguel Angel RODRIGUEZ, Appellant
Decision Date15 November 2017

174 A.3d 1130

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania
v.
Miguel Angel RODRIGUEZ, Appellant

No. 210 EDA 2017

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued October 10, 2017
Filed November 15, 2017


Paul M. George, Wyncote, for appellant.

Edward D. Penetar, Assistant District Attorney, Easton, for Commonwealth, appellee.

BEFORE: OTT, STABILE, JJ., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*

OPINION BY STEVENS, P.J.E.:

This is an appeal from the judgment of sentence entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County following Appellant's conviction by a jury on the charge of first degree murder, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2502(a). After a careful review, we affirm.

The trial court has extensively set forth the factual and procedural history underlying this appeal as follows:

[Following a Grand Jury investigation, Appellant was arrested and charged with Criminal Homicide.] The Commonwealth provided discovery[,] and defense counsel filed [an] omnibus pretrial motion on April 28, 2015, seeking additional discovery and suppression of [Appellant's] statements to the police. A suppression hearing was held on June 11, 2015, to address a number of issues raised by [Appellant] in his omnibus pretrial motions.

***
174 A.3d 1134
Following the pretrial hearing, both parties submitted briefs to the court. On September 10, 2015, the court denied [Appellant's] motions to suppress statements he made to the police and his motion to reveal the identify [of the Commonwealth's confidential informant]. On the same day, the Commonwealth issued subpoenas to twenty-seven witnesses whose addresses and phone numbers were not disclosed [in order] to ensure their safety. Defense counsel was given an opportunity to meet with these witnesses at the Courthouse.

The [jury] trial in this case[, at which Appellant was represented by counsel,] began on February 1, 2016[,] and ended on February 5, 2016. The jury returned a verdict of guilty to one count of Criminal Homicide–First Degree Murder....The following evidence was presented at trial in support of this verdict.

On February 9, 2013, Easton Police responded to a report of shots fired at Eddie G's bar in Easton. [N.T., 2/2/16, at 8–9.] Officer Brian Burd of the Easton Police Department was the first officer on the scene. [Id. at 9.] Officer Burd was directed to the "Employee's Only" area of the bar, where he observed the victim, Damien Robinson, lying on the floor. [Id. at 10.] At the time of the officer's arrival, the victim was still alive, but he was unconscious and his breathing was shallow. [Id. at 12.] Jennifer Delgado, an employee at Eddie G's and a witness, was administering CPR to the victim. [Id. at 10–11.] Officer Burd directed her to stop CPR so that he could check the victim's vital signs and administer life saving measure[s]. Id. Officer Burd then radioed for backup[,] EMS[,] and Fire. [Id. at 12.] While treating the victim, Officer Burd observed a gunshot wound to the victim's left upper chest area and a gunshot [wound ] at his right armpit. [Id. at 14.]

Once backup officers, [F]ire[,] and EMS arrived, they managed to secure the scene and began looking for a gun. [Id. at 16.] The victim was removed from the scene and taken to the hospital. [Id. at 16–17.] Officer Burd then began interviewing witnesses, including Ms. Delgado, Darryl Williams, Rico Garnet, and Mike King. [Id. ] Of those witnesses, only Mr. King saw the shooting and could provide a description of the shooter. [Id. at 17.] Mr. King worked as a bouncer at Eddie G's. Id. He described the shooter as a five feet, eight inch [ ] tall black male with medium-toned skin. [Id. at 18.] The shooter was wearing a dark hoodie with the hood up and dark sweatpants. Id. He described the gun as a black semi-automatic handgun. Id.

Officer Burd [ ] observed a shell casing outside the "Employee's Only" door leading [to] the back room where the victim was found. [Id. ] On the left side (if entering through the "Employee's Only" door) of the room, officers observed a cartridge casing with an unfired round, an empty shell casing, and a bag of what was suspected to be marijuana. [Id. ] In the same room was another closed door with a bullet hole through it. [Id. at 18–19.] Officers found two bullets inside the room behind the door. Id. Officers further observed a broken cell phone and a sweatshirt near the rear door of the building. [Id. at 19.]

Next, Dr. Zhongxue Hua testified as an expert in forensic pathology. [Id. at 57–58.] Dr. Hua reported the findings of his autopsy to the jury. This included the discovery of two gunshot[ ] wounds on the victim, one of which was fatal, and their trajectory through the body. [Id. at 65–67.] Dr. Hua opined that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the chest with no contributing factors. [Id. at 92.] During this testimony, two colored pictures of the injuries were presented
174 A.3d 1135
to the jury, one of the victim's chest wound and one of the victim's back where exit wounds were observable. [Id. at 52.] These photographs were entered into evidence over the objections of [Appellant]. [Id. at 51.] The pictures were displayed for approximately a minute while in use by Dr. Hua to describe the location of entry and exit wounds on the victim. [Id. at 63–64.] An instruction was given to the jury by the court prior to the introduction of the photographs, explaining their purpose and instructing the jury to not allow their emotions to prejudice [Appellant]. [Id. at 61–62.]

Detective Darren Snyder was responsible for processing the crime scene at Eddie G's bar. Along with evidence observed by Officer Burd, Detective Snyder also collected another 9mm Luger casing, an orange lighter, and bullet fragments. [Id. at 114, 141–42.] Detective Snyder also collected DNA samples from a blood smear on a closet door, the push bar of the "Employee's Only" door, the rear exit door, and from the cell phone discovered by Officer Burd. [Id. at 125–26, 128, 132, 181.]

Corporal Jeffery Dietz of the Pennsylvania State Police Regional Crime Lab testified at trial as an expert in firearm and tool mark examination. [Id. at 254.] He asserted that all three cartridge casings recovered from the scene were fired from the same firearm. [Id. at 261.] He also compared the two intact bullets and the fragments found at the scene and discovered that all three items were fired from the same gun. [Id. at 264–66.]

Detective Matthew Rush, the affiant in the present case, testified regarding his investigation at trial. Specifically, Detective Rush spoke about his conversations with [Appellant] at the Easton Police Department. At an interview on February 21, 2013, [Appellant] stated that he had arrived at Eddie G's on the night of the incident around 9:00 pm and had not witnessed the gunshots. (Commonwealth Ex. 76). He also denied ever being in the back room of the bar. [Id. ] [Appellant] also denied losing his phone at Eddie G's and insisted it was at his house, but later in the interview said that a man named Devol James borrowed his phone and lost it. [Id. ]

On March 11, [2013,] Detective Rush obtained a search warrant for [Appellant's] DNA to be compared with the evidence at the scene. [N.T., 2/4/16, at 42–45.] The DNA sample was collected from [Appellant] at which time [Appellant] told Detective Rush he had gone to New York for a few days before coming back to Easton. [Id. at 46.] The two spoke again on April 29, 2013 [,] and [Appellant] denied having anything to do with the homicide. [Id. at 47–48.] [Appellant] testified before the Grand Jury on June 27, 2013. In his testimony, [Appellant] stated that he has two cell phones and sometimes gives one of them to a man identified as "Hood" for drug transactions. [Id. at 58.]....[Appellant admitted that on the night in question he was] at Eddie G's wearing a grey sweat suit. [Id. at 61, 69.] He claimed that Hood had told him that he lost the cell phone [that Appellant] gave him at Eddie G's. [Id. at 89.] He testified that he stayed at the Ramada Inn briefly after the shooting and then went to New York around February 12, 2013[,] for a few days. [Id. at 100–02.] [Appellant] denied having a gun that night. [Id. at 91.]

The Commonwealth also called Catherine Palla, who was qualified as an expert in DNA profiling. [Id. at 166–67.] She tested the known samples from [Appellant] with the various collected samples found at the crime scene. [Id. at 174.] The bag of marijuana found at the scene had DNA from two people, one of which was [Appellant]. [Id. at 175.] None of the casings had enough DNA to test.
174 A.3d 1136
[Id. at 176.] The cell phone contained a mixture of three different DNA profiles, with a major contributor of the mixture being [Appellant]. [Id. ]

The Commonwealth called a number of eyewitnesses, the two most significant of which was Jennifer Delgado and Mike King.

Mike King worked as a bounced [sic ] at Eddie G's on the night of the shooting. He testified that he recalled seeing [Appellant] and Hood at Eddie G's on the night in question. [N.T., 2/3/16, at 7–10.] He saw [Appellant] and Hood arguing with a man known as "La[l]a," who was at the bar with the victim, known as "Head." [Id. at 11–12.] Mr. King was required to break up the argument between the two groups. [Id. at 15.] Mr. King was called to break up a fight in the back later that night, which was taking place on the other side of the "Employee's Only" door. [Id. at 19–20.] When he entered the back area through
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