J-S55038-17

*Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION – SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,

 Appellee

 v.

JAMONI T. ANDERSON,

 Appellant

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IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 2076 MDA 2016

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence August 2, 2016, 

in the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County, 

Criminal Division, at No(s): CP-22-CR-0001239-2015

BEFORE: DUBOW, RANSOM, and STRASSBURGER,* JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY STRASSBURGER, J.: FILED OCTOBER 04, 2017

Jamoni T. Anderson (Appellant) appeals from his August 2, 2016 

judgment of sentence of six to 20 years of incarceration imposed after a jury 

convicted him of voluntary manslaughter. We affirm.

The trial court offered the following summary of the facts underlying 

Appellant’s conviction.

On November 19, 2014, Maurice Geter (“[Decedent]”) was 

shot in Apricot Alley; he was pronounced dead at the hospital 

later that evening. [Decedent], a drug dealer, had been 

involved in some sort of argument with Tamir Williams 

(“Williams”) and [Appellant], [who were] also drug dealers. It’s 

evident that multiple phone calls from [Decedent] to the phone 

that Williams [] carried played a part in his death. Though the 

testimony is contradictory, we do know that [Decedent] placed 

three phone calls to number owned by Eddie Pena (“Pena”). 

Pena had left his phone with Williams and Williams answered the 

calls from [Decedent]. Some sort of argument ensued during 

which [Decedent] insulted Williams, possibly because Williams 

stole a customer of [Decedent].
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Earlier that day, Kwane Cuff (“Cuff”) and [Decedent] were 

driving to a local mall to purchase a kit to help Cuff pass a drug 

test. Cuff drove the two in his Ford Explorer. During the trip, 

[Decedent] was trying to reach Pena in order to purchase drugs. 

Cuff heard [Decedent] get very angry with whomever [sic] had 

answered Pena’s phone (Cuff could tell it was not Pena). 

[Decedent] indicated that the person on the other end had called 

him a rat. The call ended and then [Decedent] called Pena’s 

number again and began to question whomever [sic] answered. 

[Decedent] had Cuff park on Regina Street and told the person 

on the other end, whom he described as “some nut ass young 

boy named Mere” where they were. During the third call, 

[Decedent] told the other person “you ain’t on Regina Street” 

and then instructed Cuff to drive away. Cuff described 

[Decedent] as being angry throughout the calls and threatening 

the person on the phone. 

After leaving the mall, [Decedent] had Cuff take him to 

Jefferson Street. Cuff assumed they were going to fight whoever 

was on the phone, but [Decedent] just got out and walked up 

the street. During the course of the investigation Shaquan Jones 

(“Jones”) revealed that he had called [Decedent] a day or two

prior to the shooting and let [Decedent] know that he had found 

a gun and it was for sale. Jones was unable to sell the gun that 

day, but on the day of [Decedent’s] death, [he] contacted 

[Jones] and asked to borrow the gun. [Decedent] came over to 

[Jones’s] house on Jefferson Street to borrow the gun and at 

trial, Jones indicated that [Decedent] did not seem nervous; 

however, his statement to police indicated that [Decedent] 

seemed nervous or frightened that day and that he was 

preparing. Jones recalled that the gun magazine was fully 

loaded with six bullets at the time. 

[Decedent] returned to Cuff’s car and showed Cuff the gun 

he had just borrowed - a .380. Cuff recalled seeing four bullets 

in the chamber when [Decedent] checked it. [Decedent] called 

[Pena’s] number again and told the person that he was on his 

way to his house now. Cuff drove [to Decedent’s] house and 

parked in the alley as directed by [Decedent]. They waited in 

the car for about 10 minutes when [Decedent] pointed out some 

people coming towards them on foot and jumped out of the car. 

[Decedent] yelled “What’s up?” to them and then the two men 

started shooting at [Decedent] and Cuff. Cuff had also jumped 
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out, but jumped back into the car when the shooting started. 

Cuff never saw or heard [Decedent] shoot his gun. After the 

shooting stopped, Cuff called for [Decedent] but ultimately found 

[Decedent] lying near the tires, shot. He rolled [Decedent] over 

and picked up the gun. Cuff did not know of any problems that 

[Decedent] might have had with either [Appellant] or codefendant Williams. 

Raylynnd Aldridge (“Aldridge”) sold drugs to [Decedent], 

having met him through Pena, who also sold him drugs. 

Aldridge, [Appellant,] and Williams were all friends prior to this 

incident. Aldridge had been with Williams driving around the 

city, selling drugs and smoking. Earlier in the day, he had been 

with Pena, but he dropped Pena and a woman off at a hotel. 

Pena left his phone in the car for Aldridge to use to sell drugs. 

While Aldridge and Williams were driving around, they 

received a call on Pena’s phone from [Decedent]. Williams 

answered it and Aldridge recognized [Decedent’s] voice and 

heard [Decedent] yelling at Williams - he thinks because 

Williams and not Pena answered the phone. Williams hung up; 

[Decedent] called back and started yelling again and Williams 

hung up again. Williams was laughing throughout these two 

calls. [Decedent] called back a third time and Williams put him 

on speakerphone. Aldridge heard a part of the conversation 

during which [Decedent] told Williams to bow down the next 

time they saw each other. Aldridge thought this was 

disrespectful and believed that Williams also thought it was 

disrespectful as Williams’[s] attitude changed following that 

comment. [Decedent] also threatened to beat up or shoot 

Williams but per Aldridge, Williams did not seem to take those 

threats seriously because he just giggled at them.

[Appellant] called looking for drugs and a ride home while 

Aldridge and Williams were driving around and while [Appellant] 

was in the car, [Decedent] called again and told them to meet 

him at 15th Street. Aldridge interpreted this as a 

threat/invitation to fight. Aldridge asked Williams if he wanted 

to fight [Decedent,] and Williams did[,] so Aldridge drove them 

there. Aldridge filled [Appellant] in on what was going on and 

[Appellant] said he was fine fighting [Decedent]. Aldridge did 

not know that Williams and [Appellant] both had guns. 
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They drove to 15th [Street] but were unable to find a 

parking spot so drove through an alley and parked on 14th 

Street. Aldridge saw [Decedent] getting out of an SUV when 

they drove by, but did not see who was driving the vehicle. The 

three of them walked up the alley towards 15th when they saw 

[Decedent] standing there and Aldridge saw a reflection of light 

off what he believed was a gun. Williams yelled “gun” and 

Aldridge turned and started walking back towards his car. 

Aldridge heard a single shot and then a volley of shots from 

behind him and glancing back saw [Appellant] and Williams 

shooting back at [Decedent]. [Appellant] and Williams followed 

him to the car and they got in[.] Once inside the car, 

[Appellant] made a comment to the effect of “I turned the beam 

on and I hit him.” Then they drove to pick up Aldridge’s friend 

Chave and drop [Appellant] off. Aldridge heard from [Appellant] 

that [Decedent] had stolen one of his drug customers. Aldridge 

had no intent to kill [Decedent] that day, nor had any 

conversation taken place between him, Williams, and [Appellant] 

that led him to believe they intended to kill him. 

[Appellant] himself testified at trial. In 2014, he was a 

drug dealer and user. In May of that year he was robbed so he 

acquired a .40 caliber handgun from one of his clients. In 

August, he purchased a laser sight while with Williams, Pena and

another acquaintance. 

On the night in question, [Appellant] called Pena for a ride, 

but Aldridge answered the phone. Aldridge and Williams arrived 

shortly thereafter, picked him up, and drove to State and 

Apricot. Williams told him they were going to 15th Street, but 

they ended up driving straight to 14th Street. They stopped and 

Williams asked [Appellant] to walk with him. [Appellant] 

thought they were going to sell drugs to a house on that street 

where he had sold before. As they walked up over the hill, they 

saw a man with a truck, pointing a gun. [Appellant] heard 

Williams say something, and [Appellant] ran towards a red car. 

They used a PT Cruiser parked on a parking pad in Apricot Alley, 

but across 15th Street from the Explorer, which was facing the 

same direction as the Explorer[,] for cover.

[Appellant] heard multiple gun shots and with his eyes 

closed, he reached above the PT Cruiser and fired four to five 

shots over top of his head. Once he opened his eyes, he saw 
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Williams running back down the alley and he followed. His gun 

rebounded on the first shot and upon returning to the car, he 

discovered his laser sight had fallen off. Williams and Aldridge 

dropped [Appellant] off a few blocks away because he did not 

want to be with them anymore. 

Later that night, [Appellant] found out that [Decedent] had 

been shot and killed on Apricot Alley. [Appellant] did not tell 

anyone about his involvement and returned the gun to person he 

had gotten it [from]. He asked his client about possibly burning 

the gun and so they did try to do that. [Appellant] expressed 

remorse and apologized to [Decedent’s] family while on the 

stand. 

[Appellant] acknowledged knowing Williams, but denied 

that he ever called Williams for help or back up that day. He 

denied knowing [Decedent] well enough to have any sort of 

problem with him and denied that this shooting was related to 

drugs or stealing customers. [Appellant] acknowledged that he 

made no attempt to leave the alley prior to shooting his gun, but 

said it was because he was scared since other people were 

shooting. 

Jacquie Williams (“Jacquie”), a friend of Williams[], called 

him that night just to check in. During the call she mentioned 

reading about [Decedent]’s death. Later that evening, Williams 

came over and they talked about [Decedent’s] death. Williams 

told her that he had gone over to fight [Decedent] since 

[Decedent] [w]as being disrespectful and provoking him to fight. 

Williams told Jacquie that [Decedent] had called him “a nut ass 

young bull.” Williams also told her that he did not have a gun, 

but was there just for a fistfight. After Williams left, Jacquie 

called [Appellant] to ask what had happened. During that call[], 

Jacquie testified that [Appellant] said he shot [Decedent] for 

stealing his client. He told her that they walked up the alleyway 

and saw [Decedent] standing there with a gun so he started 

shooting and using his laser [sight], hit [Decedent]. Jacquie also 

testified that for about two weeks prior to this, [Appellant] was 

complaining about [Decedent’s] stealing a client and [said] that 

he was looking for [Decedent]; however, she did not tell the 

police this in her prior statement. 
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Office Maurer responded to the scene and found 

[Decedent] lying on his back near the driver’s side rear tire of 

the SUV underneath a street light. Cuff approached Officer 

Barrelet, another responder, and informed her that he had a gun 

that he had taken off of [Decedent’s] body. When Officer 

Barrelet secured the gun, a .380, she noticed that it was not 

warm and she did not notice any odor that suggest it might have 

been recently fired. The gun could hold a maximum of seven 

bullets but there were only 5 bullets when she checked the gun. 

As part of his duties, Investigator Kimmick processes crime 

scenes and evidence. He created a crime scene diagram after he 

responded to the scene. The crime scene showed that near the 

Ford Explorer were three projectiles. Further, surrounding the 

PT Cruiser, he found 13 .40 caliber cartridge cases. In a semiautomatic gun, the cartridge case is ejected out of the side of 

the gun, usually to the right. In examining the Ford Explorer, 

Investigator Kimmick found that more bullets hit the passenger 

side than the driver’s side. His examination of the PT Cruiser 

revealed a bullet hole in the front windshield and two defects on 

the roof. All of the damage to the PT Cruiser was to the front of 

the vehicle. He did not find any evidence of bullet strikes to any 

area facing the front of the PT Cruiser either. [Decedent’s] 

hands were not tested for gunshot residue. 

A ballistics expert determined that the .40 caliber 

cartridges came from two separate .40 caliber guns. Further, he 

testified that a .38 caliber gun would not be able to discharge a 

.40 caliber bullet. 

Det. John O’Connor interviewed Williams after he was 

picked up. Williams was read his Miranda[1]rights and Williams 

agreed to give a statement without a lawyer. Williams told Det. 

O’Connor that he went up the alley with someone but he was not 

the shooter; he did not see a gun on [Decedent] and once the 

other person started firing a pistol he fled back to the car. 

Williams confirmed that there had been a series of phone calls 

between him and [Decedent] that day. 

Trial Court Opinion, 2/14/2017, at 1-8 (citations omitted). 

 

1 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
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Upon this evidence, the jury convicted Appellant of voluntary 

manslaughter, and the trial court sentenced Appellant as indicated above. 

Appellant timely filed a post-sentence motion, and timely filed a notice of 

appeal after the motion was denied. Both Appellant and the trial court have 

complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925. On appeal, Appellant seeks this Court’s 

review of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his conviction. 

Appellant’s Brief at 4.

A claim challenging the sufficiency of the evidence is a 

question of law. Evidence will be deemed sufficient to support 

the verdict when it establishes each material element of the 

crime charged and the commission thereof by the accused,

beyond a reasonable doubt. Where the evidence offered to 

support the verdict is in contradiction to the physical facts, in 

contravention to human experience and the laws of nature, then 

the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law. When reviewing a 

sufficiency claim[,] the court is required to view the evidence in 

the light most favorable to the verdict winner giving the 

prosecution the benefit of all reasonable inferences to be drawn 

from the evidence.

Commonwealth v. Ortiz, 160 A.3d 230, 233-34 (Pa. Super. 2017) 

(quoting Commonwealth v. Widmer, 744 A.2d 745, 751 (Pa. 2000) 

(internal citations omitted)).

The voluntary-manslaughter statute provides as follows.

(a) General rule.--A person who kills an individual without 

lawful justification commits voluntary manslaughter if at the time 

of the killing he is acting under a sudden and intense passion 

resulting from serious provocation by:

(1) the individual killed; or
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(2) another whom the actor endeavors to kill, but he 

negligently or accidentally causes the death of the 

individual killed.

(b) Unreasonable belief killing justifiable.--A person who 

intentionally or knowingly kills an individual commits voluntary 

manslaughter if at the time of the killing he believes the 

circumstances to be such that, if they existed, would justify the 

killing under Chapter 5 of this title (relating to general principles 

of justification), but his belief is unreasonable.

18 Pa.C.S. § 2503.2

Here, the jury was charged on the elements of murder in the first and 

third degrees as well as voluntary manslaughter. N.T., 5/18-19/2016, at 

571-79. “The law in this Commonwealth has always been that a conviction 

for voluntary manslaughter will be upheld as long as the evidence is 

sufficient to show that the elements of murder were present.” 

Commonwealth v. Harner, 546 A.2d 1241, 1242 (Pa. Super. 1988). 

Our Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Weston, 749 

A.2d 458 (Pa. 2000), is instructive. The Court offered the following 

summary of the evidence offered against Weston in that case.

Tyrone Weston’s co-conspirator, Le-Le, was involved in an 

argument with Derwin Fowler, the decedent, about selling drugs 

at an abandoned house that the decedent regarded as his 

 

2 Appellant, the Commonwealth, and the trial court all discuss the sufficiency 

of the evidence to establish that Appellant was guilty of imperfect selfdefense under subsection (b) of the statute. Appellant’s Brief at 16; 

Commonwealth’s Brief at 15; Trial Court Opinion, 2/14/2017, at 10-11. 

However, the docket indicates that Appellant was convicted for violation of 

subsection (a)(1) regarding a killing under intense passion. As we discuss 

infra, the evidence was sufficient to sustain Appellant’s conviction under 

either subsection.
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territory. The decedent and Le-Le argued outside the house. 

Following the argument, the decedent went inside the house, 

and sat down on a couch with a gun on his lap. Le-Le returned to 

the house with Weston [] at his side. [Weston], armed with a 

gun, entered the house and asked Le-Le, “which one was it?” 

The decedent stood up. Shots rang out and [Weston] was hit in 

the foot. [Weston] and Le-Le then shot the decedent to death. 

The other people at the property were able to get away and 

provided eyewitness testimony regarding the incident.

Id. at 459-60 (footnote omitted).

Our Supreme Court determined that the evidence was sufficient to 

establish that Weston committed voluntary manslaughter.

The evidence presented at trial established that [Weston] 

went to the location, armed with a gun in order to assist Le-Le, 

who was also armed with a gun. As noted by the trial court, the 

fact that the decedent shot first does not justify [Weston’s] 

shooting the decedent to death after confronting him with a gun. 

... [E]ntering the property of another with a gun in hand to 

revenge a disagreement certainly supports the voluntary 

manslaughter verdict here; and indeed this same evidence could 

have easily supported a verdict of murder in the first degree 

since the intent to kill is plain. 

Id. at 462 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

Similarly, the evidence in the instant case, viewed in the light most 

favorable to the Commonwealth, establishes that Appellant was angry with 

Decedent for stealing one of Appellant’s “fiends” (i.e., users who spend a lot 

on drugs, buying daily). N.T., 5/18-19/2016, at 281, 381. After he was 

picked up by Williams and Aldridge, Appellant agreed to go along with them 

to fight Decedent. Id. at 262. When Appellant and Williams confronted 

Decedent in the alley, Appellant himself used his laser sight and shot 
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Decedent. Id. at 277. After Decedent had been killed, Appellant 

acknowledged that he shot him for stealing the client. Id. at 380 (“He was 

like, yeah, I shot him. He stole my fucking fiend.”). 

As was the evidence in Weston, this evidence in this case is sufficient 

to establish that Appellant shot Decedent with malice and the specific intent 

to kill, which are the requirements for a first-degree murder conviction. 

See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Murray, 83 A.3d 137, 151 (Pa. 2013) (“To 

obtain a first-degree [sic] murder conviction, the Commonwealth must 

demonstrate that a human being was unlawfully killed, the defendant 

perpetrated the killing, and the defendant acted with malice and a specific 

intent to kill.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, the 

jury could have convicted Appellant of first-degree murder. 

Instead, the jury chose to convict Appellant of voluntary 

manslaughter. Our law allows such a verdict based upon “a combination of 

two factors: a realistic appreciation of the humanity of those who sit on our 

juries, and the legal concept that voluntary manslaughter is by definition a 

lesser offense than murder but one included within a murder indictment.” 

Commonwealth v. Penn, 282 A.2d 233, 234 (Pa. 1971). We see no 

reason to disturb the jury’s verdict.3

 

3 Because the evidence supported a finding that Appellant himself murdered 

Geter, we need not consider his claim that he was not liable for Geter’s 

death as Williams’s accomplice. 
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We also reject Appellant’s argument that the verdict cannot stand 

because the Commonwealth’s evidence was “so unreliable and/or 

contradictory as to make any verdict thereupon pure conjecture.” 

Appellant’s Brief at 18 (citing Commonwealth v. Karkaria, 625 A.2d 1167 

(Pa. 1993)). This is not a case, such as Karkaria or Commonwealth v. 

Bennett, 303 A.2d 220, 220 (Pa. Super. 1973), in which the 

Commonwealth’s case was based upon the testimony of a witness whose 

testimony was so inconsistent as to be completely irreconcilable, and the 

jury would have had to guess which version of the story to believe. 

Rather, the Commonwealth in the instant case provided several 

witnesses whose testimony supported the case against Appellant. Although 

the witnesses may have given inconsistent statements or had motives or 

histories that made their credibility questionable, the jury had the 

opportunity to observe the witnesses, to consider the reasons for the 

inconsistencies, and to contemplate all of these factors in weighing the 

evidence. The jury did not have to guess what happened, but rather 

considered the credibility of each witness and weighed the evidence as a 

whole. Thus, we see no reason to deviate from the rule that it is for the jury 

to believe all, part, or none of the evidence. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. 

Patterson, 940 A.2d 493, 502 (Pa. Super. 2007) (noting that a “mere 

conflict in the testimony does not render the evidence insufficient because it 

is within the province of the fact finder to determine the weight to be given 
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to the testimony and to believe all, part, or none of the evidence” (citation 

omitted)).

Judgment of sentence affirmed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 10/4/2017