Commonwealth v. Spoerry
| Decision Date | 12 November 2021 |
| Docket Number | J-A17024-21,2206 EDA 2020 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA Appellee v. JESSE SPOERRY Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA Appellee
v.
JESSE SPOERRY Appellant
No. 2206 EDA 2020
No. J-A17024-21
Superior Court of Pennsylvania
November 12, 2021
NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered October 22, 2019 In the Court of Common Pleas of Monroe County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-45-CR-0001802-2018
BEFORE: McLAUGHLIN, J., KING, J., and PELLEGRINI, J. [*]
MEMORANDUM
KING, J.
Appellant, Jesse Spoerry, appeals nunc pro tunc from the judgment of sentence entered in the Monroe County Court of Common Pleas, following his jury trial convictions for two counts of aggravated assault, one count of burglary, two counts of simple assault, and one count of possession of an instrument of crime.[1] For the following reasons, we vacate and remand for resentencing without imposition of any mandatory minimum sentence, remand with instructions regarding the trial court's analysis concerning the proffered third-party guilt evidence, and affirm in all other respects.
The trial court opinion set forth the relevant facts of this case as follows:
On July 24, 2018, Mary Johnson ("Johnson") and Korryn Suprys ("Suprys") were sleeping on a pullout bed in Johnson's home when an intruder attacked them both with an object like a baseball bat or pipe. They went to bed around 9:30 or 10. Next Johnson remembers, the attacker struck her in the legs while screaming "you fucking bitches, how could you do this to me, you fucking bitches?" Suprys awoke to Johnson screaming for help and was hit around her right eye, knocking her unconscious. Her eye swelled shut. Meanwhile, Johnson jumped away, tripping on the bed, and she "flew" out the front door, hoping a neighbor would hear her scream. The attacker followed her outside and continued to beat her on the head, arms, and back. Suprys walked to the bathroom where she saw blood covering her face and the side of her head "crumpled together." Johnson followed a trail of blood to meet Suprys in the bathroom, saying "look what Jesse [(Appellant)] did to my ear." Johnson then helped her off the toilet and took her to lie down
Responding to the scene after Johnson called 911, Detective Earl Ackerman of the Pocono Township Police Department found her standing in the entranceway with "a lot of" blood on her head and body. Suprys was seated on the edge of the couch they used as a bed. Blood covered the couch. He found a blood trail leading to the bathroom and a significant amount of blood in the bathroom itself. Detective Ackerman observed cast-off on the walls and ceiling around the bed consistent with a bloodied object being swung
The victims both spent three days in the hospital. Johnson received treatment for a concussion with loss of consciousness, lacerations to the scalp, a broken collarbone, and fractures in her arm, wrist, thumb, and hand. Suprys experienced facial and skull fractures and had an epidural hematoma and concussion. At the time of trial, she continued to experience recurrent headaches and pain in her ear and shoulder.
They both identified [Appellant] as the assailant by his face, voice, body structure, and shoes. Johnson testified that she saw him standing by the bed holding a bat in the glow of a "bug light" on the front porch that lit him "like a glow worm." Suprys also remembered Johnson say "Jesse, what the fuck
are you doing?" The message dispatching Detective Ackerman to the scene reported Johnson's ex-boyfriend as the possible assailant, indicating the 911 caller had identified him. Suprys could also recognize [Appellant's] voice while he screamed at them, as she knew him as Johnson's ex-boyfriend, [and] Johnson identified [Appellant] by the shoes she bought for him at a [buy]-one-get-one sale at The Crossings outlet stores. Suprys could only see the assailant from the waist down but believed she could recognize the build of his lower body. Another witness, Johnson's neighbor Meghan Serfass, saw [Appellant]'s car driving toward the crime scene between 10:30 and 10:45 while she stood outside smoking a cigarette. She identified a photo of the car as the one belonging to [Appellant] at trial. She could recognize the car as a Honda Civic with black detailing on the side and a fire extinguisher in the passenger-side window.
* * *
Pocono Township Detective James Wagner reconstructed [Appellant]'s movements on the day of the crime, using geographical information of the cell towers accessed by [Appellant]'s phone and the internal GPS location data recorded by the phone itself. [The court] qualified Detective Wagner as an expert in cell data analysis and mapping, and he testified as follows. Between 9:40 and 10:05 P.M., [Appellant] left his home and then moved in a southerly direction toward the crime scene. He arrived in that vicinity at or after 10:32 P.M. By 11:12 P.M., he ha[d] begun to travel away east, toward New Jersey. Johnson called 911 at 11:02. Detective Wagner testified to a reasonable degree of expert certainty that [Appellant]'s phone was in the area of the crime at the time the assault occurred.
* * *
(Trial Court Opinion, filed January 20, 2020, at 2-6) (internal record citations omitted).
On July 18, 2019, a jury convicted Appellant of the above-mentioned crimes, but found Appellant not guilty of two counts of attempted criminal
homicide and two counts of terroristic threats. On August 2, 2019, the Commonwealth filed notice of its intent to seek mandatory sentencing pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9714 (sentences for second and subsequent offenses of crimes of violence), and Appellant filed his motion to preclude imposition of a mandatory minimum sentence on that same day. On October 22, 2019, the court denied Appellant's motion, and it sentenced Appellant to an aggregate of 20 to 40 years' incarceration. Appellant filed an untimely appeal, which this Court quashed on June 15, 2020. See Commonwealth v. Spoerry, No. 3418 EDA 2019 (Pa.Super. filed June 15, 2020).
Nevertheless, the court granted Appellant's subsequent request for reinstatement of his direct appeal rights nunc pro tunc on November 13, 2020. Appellant timely filed his notice of appeal nunc pro tunc on November 16, 2020. The next day, the court ordered Appellant to file a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement of errors complained of on appeal; Appellant timely complied.
Appellant raises seven issues for our review:
1. Whether the [c]ourt erred when it ruled that Appellant could not cross-examine Koryn Suprys, one of the alleged victims, based upon her medical records and statements from those records?
2. Whether the [c]ourt erred when it ruled that Appellant could not cross-examine…a member of one of the victims' families, on whether she and her mother had received threats from another family and were in a dispute with them?
3. Whether the [c]ourt erred when it ruled that Appellant could not cross-examine Mary Johnson, one of the alleged victims, about various incidents of threats, sexual assault
against her daughter, and other suspicious behavior which she had reported to police?
4. Whether the [c]ourt erred when it admitted text messages as properly authenticated, despite the holding in [Commonwealth v. Mangel, 181 A.3d 1154 (Pa.Super. 2018)], where the text messages were merely somewhere in Appellant's cellular phone?
5. Whether the [c]ourt erred when it failed to allow Appellant to present reputation evidence through Susan Buchan on the basis that the shopping center businesses amongst which Mary Johnson worked on a daily basis were not a relevant community to assess her reputation for truthfulness?
6.Whether the [c]ourt erred in failing to instruct the jury to receive the testimony of the victims "with caution" through the 'accuracy in doubt' instruction because the victims had equivocated and given conflicting statements on whether they were able to see, hear, and identify Appellant and whether they even remembered the incident?
7. Whether the [c]ourt erred in sentencing [Appellant] to mandatory minimum terms under 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9714 because Appellant's prior Burglary conviction was not a 'crime of violence' for purposes of the statute?
(Appellant's Brief at 5-7).
In Appellant's first three issues, he alleges that the court abused its discretion by prohibiting him from cross-examining three different Commonwealth witnesses. When reviewing the admission or exclusion of evidence, our standard of review is well established and very narrow:
Admission of evidence is a matter within the sound discretion of the trial court, and will not be reversed absent a showing that the trial court clearly abused its discretion. We can affirm the court's decision if there is any basis to support it, even if we rely on different grounds to affirm. Not merely an error in judgment, an abuse of discretion
occurs when the law is overridden or misapplied, or the judgment exercised is manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will, as shown by the evidence on record.
Commonwealth v. Montalvo, 604 Pa. 386, 403, 986 A.2d 84, 94 (2009), cert. denied, 562 U.S. 857, 131 S.Ct. 127, 178 L.Ed.2d 77 (2010) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Our scope of review in cases where the trial court explains the basis for its evidentiary ruling is limited to an examination of the stated reason. Commonwealth v. Stephens, 74 A.3d 1034, 1037 (Pa.Super. 2013). "We must also be mindful that a discretionary ruling cannot be overturned simply because a reviewing court disagrees with the trial court's conclusion." Commonwealth v. O'Brien, 836 A.2d 966, 968 (Pa.Super. 2003), appeal denied, 577 Pa. 695, 845 A.2d 817 (2004).
A trial court has broad discretion to limit the scope of...
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