Case Title: Com. v. Fuller

Citation: 388 A.2d 693, 479 Pa. 353

Docket Number: 

State: pennsylvania

Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Date: 1978-07-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
479 Pa. 353 (1978) 388 A.2d 693 COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Herman FULLER, Appellant. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Submitted April 10, 1978. Decided July 14, 1978. *354 Abner H. Silver, Philadelphia, for appellant. Edward G. Rendell, Dist. Atty., Steven H. Goldblatt, Deputy Dist. Atty., for Law, Robert B. Lawler, Chief, Appeals Div., Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee. Before EAGEN, C.J., and O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY, NIX, MANDERINO and LARSEN, JJ. MANDERINO, Justice. Appellant, Herman Fuller, was arrested on May 3, 1974, in connection with the March 14, 1974, shooting death of Kenneth Bullard. Appellant was brought to trial before a judge and jury on January 22, 1975, charged with murder, conspiracy, *355 possessing instruments of crime, and firearms violations. Appellant was found guilty of murder in the first degree and conspiracy. Post-verdict motions were denied, and sentence of life imprisonment was imposed for the murder conviction and a concurrent one to two year prison term was imposed for the conspiracy conviction. This appeal from the homicide conviction followed. No appeal was taken from the judgment of sentence imposed on the conspiracy conviction. In this appeal, appellant raises several allegations of trial error in support of his contention that a new trial is required. Because we agree that one of these issues has merit and mandates that appellant be retried, we need not now address the other issues raised. The prosecution's evidence at trial established that at about 10:30 a.m., on March 14, 1974, appellant and another man rang the doorbell of the victim Bullard's apartment. The victim's mother, Victoria Bullard, went to the doorway of her and her son's second-floor apartment and spoke to appellant and his companion who were standing at the foot of the stairway leading to the second floor. They asked if Kenneth Bullard was at home and, because she had seen appellant several times before in her son's company, Victoria Bullard told her son that "friends" were there to see him. Appellant and his companion refused an invitation to come up to the apartment, and accordingly, Kenneth Bullard went down the stairway to meet them. Almost immediately after Kenneth Bullard descended the stairway, appellant and his companion shot Bullard in the back as he attempted to flee up the stairs. Bullard was struck by two bullets, one fired from appellant's gun, and one fired from the gun of appellant's companion. Appellant and his companion then fled the scene. Kenneth Bullard died less than one hour later from extensive internal bleeding caused by the gunshot wounds. The defense presented evidence of an alibi at trial, contending that appellant was working at the time of the slaying, and further contending that Victoria Bullard's identification of appellant was erroneous. *356 In order to bolster its proof that appellant was one of Kenneth Bullard's slayers, the prosecution called as a witness one Minnie Harley. Harley testified that she knew appellant; that she was walking home from a local barroom with appellant on March 16, 1974, two days after the Bullard homicide; and that appellant had a pistol in his possession on that date. Over defense objection, Harley also testified that appellant struck her with the pistol and threatened to shoot her with it. She also testified that when the police arrived at the street corner where appellant allegedly struck her with the pistol, appellant tossed the gun into a nearby vacant lot. The pistol was retrieved by police, however, and ballistics tests established that it had fired one of the bullets that killed Kenneth Bullard. At the commencement of Harley's testimony for the prosecution's case in chief, appellant's trial counsel objected and the following transpired in the trial judge's chambers, out of the hearing of the jury. Appellant's trial counsel again objected, but was overruled, and the witness was then permitted to testify as outlined above. *357 Appellant now argues, as he did in post-verdict motions, that it was reversible error for the trial court to permit the prosecution to introduce such evidence of independent criminal activity allegedly engaged in by appellant. The prosecution counters that the testimony regarding appellant's assault and battery of the witness two days after the Bullard slaying was admissible because it tended to establish appellant's identity as one of Bullard's killers. It is well settled in Pennsylvania that evidence of criminal activity not charged in the indictment or information on which the defendant is being tried cannot be introduced at trial except in certain limited circumstances. Commonwealth v. Roman, 465 Pa. 515, 351 A.2d 214 (1976); Commonwealth v. Fortune, 464 Pa. 367, 346 A.2d 783 (1975); Commonwealth v. Foose, 441 Pa. 173; 272 A.2d 452 (1971); Commonwealth v. Wable, 382 Pa. 80, 114 A.2d 334 (1955). The rationale behind this rule is that ". . . the fact of the commission of one offense is not proof of the commission of another." Id. 382 Pa. at 84, 114 A.2d at 336. When irrelevant to the crimes being charged, evidence of participation in other criminal activity ". . . is so prejudicial that it strips the defendant of the presumption of innocence." Commonwealth v. Roman, supra, 465 Pa. at 523, 351 A.2d at 218. Nevertheless, we have recognized certain "special circumstances," the presence of which will justify the introduction of such evidence of other criminal activity. The precise issue to which we must address ourselves, is, whether the armed assault and battery against the witness Harley was so related to the murder of Kenneth Bullard that proof of the one tends to prove the other. To state the question is to answer it; the criminal activity engaged in by appellant on March 16, 1974 (the assault and battery) was in no way related to the homicide for which he was on trial. What was relevant to the homicide was appellant's possession of one of the guns used to kill Kenneth Bullard. That evidence, relevant in fact vital to the prosecution's case, should have been presented to the jury without also informing the jury of the assault and battery. In Commonwealth v. Foose, supra, 441 Pa. 173, 272 A.2d 452 (1971), we addressed an issue analogous to that presented here. The facts behind the crimes charged in Foose were summarized by the court as follows: *359 The Foose court agreed with appellant, reversed the judgment of sentence and, awarded a new trial, saying, In the instant case, the prosecution could have established appellant's possession, on March 16, 1974, of the weapon used to kill Kenneth Bullard on March 14, 1974, without also informing the jury of the March 16 assault and battery. Following the in-chambers colloquy between the prosecuting attorney, defense counsel, and the court quoted previously in this opinion, the witness Harley testified as follows: The trial court should have instructed the district attorney and the witness out of the jury's presence that the witness was to testify only as to appellant's possession and disposition *361 of the gun. Clearly the assistant district attorney was in a position to instruct the witness as to the scope of the testimony she was to give to the jury. Indeed, the assistant district attorney had already instructed the witness to tell the jury anything regarding the allegation that appellant had attempted to rape her. This witness' testimony regarding appellant's possession and disposition of the gun, combined with the testimony of the police officer who retrieved the weapon, stating that he found it at the precise spot at which Harley said appellant threw it, the prosecution could have established all that was necessary to link appellant to the murder weapon. In this way the interests of both the prosecution and the defense could have been protected. Judgment of sentence reversed and a new trial granted. LARSEN, J., dissents.