Commonwealth v. Stevens
| Decision Date | 01 December 1975 |
| Citation | 237 Pa.Super. 457,352 A.2d 509 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Howard H. STEVENS, Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
William J. Brady, Jr., Philadelphia, for appellant.
Steven H. Goldblatt, Asst. Dist. Atty., Chief Appeals Div., Philadelphia, for appellee.
Before WATKINS, President Judge, and JACOBS HOFFMAN, CERCONE, PRICE, VAN der VOORT and SPAETH, JJ.
The appellant, Howard Stevens, was indicted by the Philadelphia Grand Jury for possessing a criminal instrument generally [1] possessing a criminal weapon, [2] possessing a prohibited offensive weapon, [3] simple assault, [4] aggravated assault [5] and robbery. [6] On December 17, 1974, the appellant was adjudged guilty by the trial judge, sitting without a jury, of theft, [7] and acquitted of all other charges. Timely motions in arrest of judgment and for a new trial were denied by the lower court, [8] and a sentence of one year probation was pronounced. Appellant now questions the propriety of his conviction.
Read in the light most favorable to the verdict winner, Commonwealth v. Burton, 450 Pa. 532, 301 A.2d 599 (1973), the record reveals the following: Early in the morning of September 13, 1974, the victim, Miss Dolores Nichols, was involved in an automobile accident at Broad and Venango Streets in Philadelphia. While she was giving details of the accident to police officers, the appellant, who apparently had been driving behind her, approached a police officer and proclaimed that he had seen the accident and Miss Nichols was not at fault. After giving his name and address to the police officer, the appellant began to transfer packages, containing women's pants suits and a dress, from her car to his car. Miss Nichols, understandably concerned, prompted a policeman to question the appellant, who explained that he was going to give Miss Nichols, whose car was severely damaged, a 'lift'. Miss Nichols consented, and the appellant drove her to the nearby El Dorado Club, where she worked as a barmaid, so that she could telephone her boyfriend. When she could not contact her boyfriend, the appellant volunteered to take her home. Miss Nichols accepted his offer, stating that she was grateful and would pay him.
As the appellant drove Miss Nichols home, he told her that she 'looked good to him'. When she responded negatively to his advances, he refused to stop at her house. Instead, he proceeded several blocks past her house, drew a knife, and forced Miss Nichols to have sexual intercourse with him. After the appellant finished, Miss Nichols asked that she be released and her packages returned. However, the appellant refused to give her the packages. He then took approximately $60 from her purse, and ordered her from his car. As he drove away, she memorized his license number and called the police. Later in the day, the appellant was arrested in his home, where two women's knit suits and one long-sleeve dress were found. Miss Nichols identified these clothes as the ones which were stolen from her.
Miss Nichols, fearful that her children, ages 12 and 14, would be adversely affected by the publicity, did not mention the rape to the police, telling the monly of the theft. It was not until November 19, 1974, that she first revealed to an Assistant District Attorney that she had been raped. By that time, the preliminary hearing had already been held and the indictments for assault, robbery, and possessing instruments of crime had been entered. Although the Commonwealth did not return a bill of indictment for rape, it attempted to show circumstances which aggravated the robbery [9] by introducing evidence at trial which established that Miss Nichols was raped in addition to having been robbed by the appellant.
Appellant has advanced four assignments of error. We have determined that all of the allegations of error are without merit and will affirm the judgment of sentence.
Appellant's primary objection is to the admission at trial of evidence of rape. We agree that evidence tending to show that the accused has committed crimes other than the one for which he is being tried is generally inadmissible. Commonwealth v. Terry, 462 Pa. 595, 342 A.2d 92 (filed July 5, 1975); Commonwealth v. Jenkins, 442 Pa. 588, 277 A.2d 356 (1971). As the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explained:
Commonwealth v. Terry, --- Pa. ---, 342 A.2d 92 (filed July 5, 1975), Quoting Commonwealth v. Allen, 448 Pa. 177, 182, 292 A.2d 373, 375 (1972).
There are, however, other purposes for which evidence of separate criminal acts may be offered, and when so offered the rule of exclusion is not applicable. One of these purposes is to complete the story of the crime for which the accused is being tried by proving its immediate context of events. This is often classified as proving a part of the 'same transaction' or the 'res gestae.' McCormick, Evidence § 190 at 448 (2d ed. 1972). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently discussed this exception, stating that such evidence is admissible where "such prior conviction or criminal act formed a part of a chain, or was one of a sequence of acts, or became part of the history of the event on trial, or was part of the natural development of the facts." Commonwealth v. Brown, 462 Pa. 578, 342 A.2d 84 (filed July 5, 1975), Quoting Commonwealth v. Williams, 307 Pa. 134, 148, 160 A. 602, 607 (1932).
In Brown, the Commonwealth's evidence showed that Brown had managed to avoid arrest after robbing a Philadelphia bar by entering a nearby building. Once inside the building, he broke into a second floor apartment occupied by a Mrs. Mitchell and her eleven your old son, Ardies. Brown forced the Mitchells to assist him while he wildly searched for money. During the search, Brown shot and killed the third floor tenant, one William Bogier. He then bound little Ardies, and proceeded to rape Mrs. Mitchell, after which he shot both the mother and her son. Neither died, however, and both testified at trial. Brown's girlfriend also testified at trial that Brown had given her a gun, declaring that he had just shot a little boy, a lady, and a man. Brown was arrested for the murder of Bogier and the related crimes, and was eventually convicted by a jury of murder in the first degree. On appeal, he contended that the lower court erred in admitting evidence relating to the events which led up to the killing of Bogier, and also to the sequel to the killing. The court upheld the judgment of sentence, stating:
'We believe that the evidence of the other events, sordid as they were, was admissible under this exception (same transaction exception) because they were part and parcel of the violent rampage which resulted in the death of William Bogier, they were necessary to complete the picture of the day in question, not to prove Brown's criminal disposition in general.'
We find the rationale of Brown to be dispositive of the instant issue. The Commonwealth contends that evidence of the rape was admissible to show the circumstances of the alleged robbery. Under the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, '(a) person is guilty of robbery if, in the course of committing a theft, he . . . threatens another with or intentionally puts him in fear of immediate serious bodily injury . . ..' 18 Pa.C.S. § 3701(a)(1)(ii). Here, the appellant, despite Miss Nichols' objections, drove his car to a point several blocks past her home. Once parked, he threatened his captive victim with an exposed knife, and then initiated a series of acts which began with rape and culminated immediately thereafter with theft. Although the rape preceded the theft, both were effected by the appellant's coercive use of the knife. Thus, not only was evidence of the rape relevant to a determination of the nature of the force employed by the appellant, but it also was properly admitted under the 'same transaction' exception because it was an integral part of the immediate context of events surrounding the alleged robbery. By admitting this evidence, we do not weaken the underlying policy of protecting an accused against unfair prejudice. As the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated in Brown: 'No error was committed in permitting the full story . . . to be told.' --- Pa. at ---, 342 A.2d at 90.
The appellant also contends that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to sustain his conviction of theft. [10] This contention is without merit.
In determining whether evidence was sufficient to support the verdict of guilty, we view the Commonwealth's evidence as true and recognize that the prosecution is entitled to all reasonable inferences therefrom. Commonwealth v. Eiland, 450 Pa. 566, 301 A.2d 651 (1973); Commonwealth v. Portalatin, 223 Pa.Super. 33, 297 A.2d 144 (1972). The instant record reveals that the appellant, knife in hand, raped Miss Nichols, ordered her from his car, snatched a package from her hands, and drove away with that package and two others belonging to her. The appellant was later discovered to have in his possession three articles of clothing which Miss Nichols identified as those which were taken from her.
While it is true that the Commonwealth must prove every essential element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, it is well established that the Commonwealth may sustain this burden by means of wholly circumstantial...
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