Commonwealth v. Seilhamer, 2004 PA Super 443 (PA 11/23/2004)

• Decision Date: 23 November 2004
• Docket Number: No. 2299 WDA 2003.,2299 WDA 2003.
• Citation: 2004 PA Super 443
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, Appellee v. MARIE LOUISE SEILHAMER, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 1

2004 PA Super 443

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, Appellee v. MARIE LOUISE SEILHAMER, Appellant.

No. 2299 WDA 2003.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Filed: November 23, 2004.

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence July 1, 2003 In the Court of Common Pleas of Blair County Criminal, No. 01 CR 1000.

Before: BENDER, KELLY, and JOHNSON, JJ.

OPINION BY KELLY, J.:

¶ 1 Appellant, Marie Louise Seilhamer, appeals from the judgment of sentence entered in the Blair County Court of Common Pleas, following her convictions for first-degree murder¹ and criminal conspiracy.² Appellant asks us to determine, inter alia, whether the trial court should have suppressed her incriminating pre-arraignment statements to the police, where the police arrested her but did not arraign her until more than twelve hours later. After examining the totality of the circumstances surrounding Appellant's arrest and arraignment, we conclude Appellant voluntarily made her pre-arraignment statements. Accordingly, we affirm her judgment of sentence.

¶ 2 The relevant facts and procedural history of this case are as follows. On the evening of May 5, 2001, Appellant's co-defendant Kristin Edmundson picked up Appellant from work in a truck, accompanied by the victim Shari Jackson. Prior to this rendezvous, Appellant and Edmundson had allegedly conspired to kill Jackson, due to her romantic involvement with Edmundson's roommate.

¶ 3 While traveling on Janesville Pike, Edmundson stopped the truck under the pretense of mechanical difficulty. The three exited the truck, whereupon Appellant struck Jackson several times with a baseball bat. Edmundson then sliced Jackson's throat multiple times with a razor blade. During or immediately after Edmundson's attack, Appellant hit Jackson again with the bat. Jackson died as a result of wounds sustained from these attacks. Appellant and Edmundson threw Jackson's body into the back of the truck, drove to another location, and dumped the body. The following day, Edmundson returned to the body and set it on fire. The burning body attracted the Pennsylvania State Police, whose investigation led to Appellant and Edmundson.

¶ 4 At 6:15 a.m. on May 7, 2001, state police took Appellant to the State Police Barracks. After questioning Appellant, the police formally arrested her at 4:00 p.m. that same day. Appellant was arraigned four hours later at 8:00 p.m.

¶ 5 Appellant filed a motion to suppress the statements she made to the police, which the trial court denied after a hearing in an order and opinion dated April 26, 2002. On May 9, 2003, a jury convicted Appellant of the aforementioned charges. On July 1, 2003, the court sentenced Appellant to life imprisonment on the murder conviction plus a consecutive ten to twenty years for the conspiracy count. Appellant filed a post-sentence motion, which the trial court denied in an opinion and order filed November 12, 2003. This timely appeal followed.

¶ 6 Appellant raises the following issues for our review:

WHETHER [APPELLANT] SHOULD HAVE HAD THE BENEFIT OF A COURT APPOINTED PSYCHIATRIST TO AID IN HER DEFENSE?

WHETHER STATEMENTS MADE BY [APPELLANT] BETWEEN THE TIME OF HER ARREST AND HER PRELIMINARY ARRAIGNMENT SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED?

WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN REFUSING TO ADMIT CERTAIN STATEMENTS AND/OR DECLARATIONS AGAINST INTEREST MADE BY THE CO-DEFENDANT... EDMUNDSON?

WHETHER A NEW TRIAL SHOULD BE GRANTED BECAUSE THE STATE POLICE FAILED TO PRESERVE NOTES THAT WERE TAKEN WHEN [APPELLANT] WAS MAKING STATEMENTS?

(Appellant's Brief at 2).

¶ 7 Appellant first argues she had a head injury that may have been extensive enough to interfere with her ability to form the specific intent to kill Jackson. Appellant complains the trial court should have granted her request for a psychiatrist to investigate this alleged mental deficiency. Appellant concludes the court's failure to appoint her a psychiatrist warrants the grant of a new trial. We disagree.

¶ 8 The decision to appoint an expert witness in a criminal case is within the sound discretion of the trial court, and we will not disturb its determination absent a clear abuse of that discretion. Commonwealth v. Abdul-Salaam, 544 Pa. 514, 535, 678 A.2d 342, 352 (1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1157, 117 S.Ct. 1337, 137 L.Ed.2d 496 (1997). In a capital case, however, "a defendant is entitled to the assistance of experts necessary to prepare a defense." Id.

¶ 9 Instantly, the trial court addressed this issue as follows:

In [Appellant's] Motion to Appoint Forensic Psychologist and Psychiatrist, [Appellant] failed to raise any issue of a head injury. Specifically, [Appellant] averred, "serious issues have been raised concerning the state of mind as well as the mental and emotional stability of [Appellant] at all relevant times associated with these offenses. Due to these factors as well as all attendant circumstances surrounding [Appellant], a psychological evaluation as well as other review by forensic psychologists and/or forensic psychiatrists." ([Appellant's Supplemental Pre-trial Motion, ¶ 12) (emphasis added).

Court appointed experts are within the sound discretion of the trial court. [Appellant] was not entitled to an endless stream of experts; just those reasonably related to the facts and circumstances of the case. [Appellant] never mentioned a head injury in her motion for experts. She was not receiving psychiatric treatment prior to her arrest. And she never raised the defense of mental infirmity, which according to the Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 573(c)(1)(b), [Appellant] needed to raise within thirty days of her arraignment. Therefore, we did not feel both a psychologist and a psychiatrist were necessary.

In regard to this case, [Appellant] requested the appointment of five experts: a forensic pathologist, a forensic psychologist, a forensic psychiatrist, a capital mitigation specialist, and co-counsel (death qualified). We granted three of those requests by appointing Dr. Walter Hofman, a forensic pathologist; Dr. Marc J. Tabackman, a forensic psychologist; and James DeFrancesco, Jr. Esquire, death qualified co-counsel. The County of Blair spent almost $20,000.00 in defense experts. [Appellant] clearly received the benefit of an expert opinion for the jury to consider.

(Trial Court Opinion, filed November 12, 2003, at 3-4) (footnote omitted). After a thorough review of the record, we agree with the trial court that Appellant had the assistance of experts necessary to prepare her defense. See Abdul-Salaam, supra. Thus, this issue is without merit.

¶ 10 Next, Appellant argues she was arrested at 6:15 a.m. on May 7, 2001, when the police accompanied her to the State Barracks, not at 4:00 p.m. later that day. Thus, Appellant contends her 8:00 p.m. arraignment was not held within six hours of her arrest, in violation of the six-hour rule announced in Commonwealth v. Davenport, 471 Pa. 278, 370 A.2d 301 (1977). Appellant concludes the trial court should have suppressed all of the statements she made during the "16 hour delay" between her 6:15 a.m. arrest and her 8:00 p.m. arraignment. We disagree.

¶ 11 When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress:

We must first ascertain whether the record supports the factual findings of the suppression court, and then determine the reasonableness of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn therefrom. In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we consider only the evidence of the prosecution's witnesses and so much of the evidence for the defense as, fairly read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted. When the evidence supports the suppression court's findings of fact on a motion to suppress, this Court may reverse only when the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are erroneous. However, we are bound by the trial court's findings of fact only to the extent that they are supported by the record.

Commonwealth v. Valentin, 748 A.2d 711, 713 (Pa.Super. 2000), appeal denied, 564 Pa. 731, 766 A.2d 1247 (2000) (quoting Commonwealth v. Long, 688 A.2d 198, 199-200 (Pa.Super. 1996)).

¶ 12 Under the old rule set forth in Davenport, supra, and Commonwealth v. Duncan, 514 Pa. 395, 525 A.2d 1177 (1987), a court had to suppress incriminating statements made by an accused more than six hours after her arrest. However, in Commonwealth v. Perez, 577 Pa. 330, 845 A.2d 764 (2004), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court expressly rejected the Davenport-Duncan "six-hour rule" and adopted a totality of the circumstances test.³ The Court has recently explained the new Perez test as follows:

[T]he [Perez] majority abandoned the six-hour rule and held that voluntary statements by an accused, given more than six hours after arrest when the accused has not been arraigned, are no longer inadmissible per se. Instead, the majority in Perez concluded that courts should look to the totality of the circumstances to determine whether a pre-arraignment statement was freely and voluntarily made, and therefore admissible. The majority explained that, in making this determination, courts should consider factors such as the attitude exhibited by the police during the interrogation, whether the defendant was advised of his constitutional rights, whether he was injured, ill, drugged or intoxicated when he confessed, and whether he was deprived of food, sleep, or medical attention during the detention.

Commonwealth v. Sepulveda, ___ Pa. ___, ___, 855 A.2d 783, 792-93 (2004) (citations and quotation marks omitted).

¶ 13 The test to determine whether a suspect is being subjected to custodial interrogation, the functional equivalent of an arrest, is:

whether he or she is physically denied of his [or her] freedom of action in any significant way or is placed in a situation in which he reasonably believes that his freedom of action or movement is restricted by the interrogation. The standard for determining whether police have initiated a...