J-S65040-14

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

JOEL GAMBLE,

Appellant No. 1029 EDA 2014

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence March 21, 2014

in the Court of Common Pleas of Pike County

Criminal Division at No.: CP-52-CR-0000207-2013

BEFORE: PANELLA, J., OLSON, J., and PLATT, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY PLATT, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 13, 2015

Appellant, Joel Gamble, appeals from the judgment of sentence 

imposed following his jury conviction of fleeing or attempting to elude a 

police officer and recklessly endangering another person.1 We affirm. 

The trial court summarized the factual history of this case as follows:

. . . [O]n March 5, 2013 [Appellant] was at a Wal-Mart in 

Milford Pennsylvania when an asset protection employee of WalMart suspected [him] of stealing merchandise. The asset 

protection employee approached [Appellant] regarding the 

suspicions and informed [him] that the police would be called. 

[Appellant] subsequently left Wal-Mart and the asset protection 

employee retrieved [Appellant’s] vehicle information, called 911 

and provided [Appellant’s] information to the police.

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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3733(a) and 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2705, respectively.
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Sergeant [David] Zegarski and Officer [Joseph] Ostrom 

from the Eastern Pike Regional Police Department responded to 

the call. While heading to Wal-Mart Sergeant Zegarski noticed 

[Appellant’s] vehicle traveling in the opposite direction heading 

north on 209. Sergeant Zegarski then communicated with 

Officer Ostrom and asked him to pursue the vehicle. Officer 

Ostrom observed [Appellant] heading north on 209 and 

subsequently stop at a red light. Officer Ostrom then activated 

his lights and sirens [and the dashboard video camera in his 

vehicle activated automatically]. [Appellant] then began to cross 

209 and proceeded to move into the left lane and onto interstate 

84. Officer Ostrom continued to have his lights and sirens 

activated and proceeded to chase [Appellant] on interstate 84 

eastbound and noticed [Appellant] accelerating. It was at that 

point that Officer Ostrom noticed [Appellant] going 

approximately a hundred miles per hour. Officer Ostrom 

followed [Appellant at speeds approaching one hundred miles 

per hour] for approximately three miles before reaching the New 

York border. At that point Sergeant Zegarski instructed Officer 

Ostrom to terminate the pursuit for safety reasons. Officer 

Ostrom terminated the pursuit for safety reasons and because 

[Appellant] had crossed the New York border.

* * *

The video footage [retrieved from Officer Ostrom’s vehicle] 

showed that once [Appellant] entered New York Officer Ostrom

continued to follow [him]. [Appellant] turned into a residential 

driveway and Officer Ostrom activated his lights again thinking 

[Appellant] was going to stop. However, [Appellant] backed out 

of the driveway and traveled in the opposite direction, stopped 

at a red light and quickly turned left toward New Jersey.

(Trial Court Opinion, 5/30/14, at 2-3, 5) (record citations omitted). 

On January 14, 2014, Appellant filed a motion in limine seeking 

exclusion of the portion of the police dashboard video footage depicting 

events in New York, on grounds that it was irrelevant to the charges and 

prejudicial to him. On January 16, 2014, Appellant proceeded to a jury trial 

and the court heard argument on Appellant’s motion in limine. The court 

denied Appellant’s motion, and the Commonwealth published the videotape 
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footage during direct examination of Officer Ostrom. Immediately before 

the jury viewed the video, the court gave the following cautionary 

instruction: 

Ladies and gentlemen, the video that you are going to view, of 

[Appellant’s] actions once he crosses the bridge into New York is 

admitted for certain limited purposes. Those purposes are for 

the credibility of witnesses, to evidence or confirm the state of 

mind of [Appellant] and to define [Appellant’s] actions.

However, any actual crime charged in this matter must be 

limited to actions taken by [Appellant] in Pennsylvania, so you 

cannot convict [Appellant] for fleeing or attempting to elude 

based upon actions that occurred only in New York.

 

Similarly, you cannot convict [Appellant] of reckless 

endangerment based upon the actions in New York. The 

evidence of the actual crimes must be evidence in Pennsylvania, 

because that’s the only area we have jurisdiction over, so I ask 

you to keep that in . . . mind as we review the video, okay.

(N.T. Trial, 1/16/14, at 138-39). 

Appellant testified in his defense and stated that he was not aware 

that police were pursuing him when he left the Wal-Mart and that he did not 

speed in order to flee. (See id. at 156-57, 159-60).

2

 At the conclusion of 

trial, the jury found Appellant guilty of the above-mentioned offenses.3 On 

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2

In order to sustain a conviction for fleeing or attempting to elude a police 

officer, the Commonwealth must prove that a driver “willfully fail[ed] or 

refuse[d] to bring his vehicle to a stop, or . . . otherwise fle[d] or 

attempt[ed] to elude a pursuing police officer, when given a visual and 

audible signal to bring the vehicle to a stop[.]” 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3733(a).

3 The trial court found Appellant guilty of four related summary traffic 

offenses. (See Criminal Docket at 3-4). 
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March 21, 2014, the trial court sentenced Appellant to an aggregate term of 

not less than twenty-four months nor more than five years’ incarceration. 

On March 31, 2014, Appellant filed a timely motion to modify sentence, 

which the trial court denied on April 2, 2014. This timely appeal followed.4 

Appellant raises one issue for our review:

Whether the trial court erred and abused its discretion by 

permitting the jury in Appellant’s trial on a charge of fleeing [or 

attempting to elude a police officer] to view unfairly prejudicial 

police in-car video footage of Appellant appearing to drive 

evasively in New York State, after the officer had earlier 

terminated pursuit while still in Pennsylvania[?]

(Appellant’s Brief, at 7). 

In his issue on appeal, Appellant challenges the trial court’s admission 

of the police dashboard video footage showing his evasive driving in New 

York after police terminated the pursuit in Pennsylvania. (See id. at 11-20). 

Appellant argues that the court should have excluded the footage because it 

is irrelevant to any action that he took in Pennsylvania. (See id. at 11, 18). 

He also contends that admission of the footage unfairly prejudiced him 

because there is no evidence that he similarly avoided Officer Ostrom in 

Pennsylvania. (See id.). We disagree. 

Our standard of review is as follows:

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4

Pursuant to the trial court’s order, Appellant filed a timely concise 

statement of errors complained of on appeal on April 15, 2014. The court 

filed a Rule 1925(a) opinion on May 30, 2014. See Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
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The admissibility of evidence is at the discretion of the trial 

court and only a showing of an abuse of that discretion, and 

resulting prejudice, constitutes reversible error. Abuse of 

discretion is not merely an error of judgment, but rather where 

the judgment is manifestly unreasonable or where the law is not 

applied or where the record shows that the action is a result of 

partiality, prejudice, bias or ill will. Furthermore, [where] the 

trial court indicate[s] the reason for its decision . . . our scope of 

review is limited to an examination of the stated reason.

Commonwealth v. Stephens, 74 A.3d 1034, 1037 (Pa. Super. 2013) 

(citations and quotation marks omitted). 

The overriding principle in determining if any evidence [ ] 

should be admitted involves a weighing of the probative value 

versus prejudicial effect. [Our Supreme Court has] held that the 

trial court must decide first if the evidence is relevant and, if so, 

whether its probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect. This 

Commonwealth defines relevant evidence as “having any 

tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of 

consequence to the determination of the action more probable or 

less probable than it would be without the evidence.” Pa.R.E. 

401. Relevant evidence may nevertheless be excluded “if its 

probative value is outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, 

confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by 

considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless 

presentation of cumulative evidence.” Pa.R.E. 403.

Commonwealth v. Johnson, 2014 WL 7392218, at *37 (Pa. filed Dec. 30, 

2014) (case citations omitted).

With respect to admission of evidence of other bad acts, this Court has 

stated: 

It is settled law in this Commonwealth that other bad acts 

evidence is inadmissible to prove a defendant’s propensity to 

commit crime. Nonetheless, bad acts evidence may be 

introduced for other limited purposes, including, but not limited 

to, establishing motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, 

knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident, common 

scheme or design, modus operandi, and the natural history of 
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the case. Pa.R.E. 404(b)(2). This evidence is admissible only if 

the probative value of the evidence outweighs its potential for 

unfair prejudice.

Commonwealth v. Kinard, 95 A.3d 279, 284 (Pa. Super. 2014) (en banc) 

(case citation omitted).

Here, the trial court found that the videotape footage of Appellant’s 

evasive actions in New York, recorded immediately after police terminated 

the high-speed chase in Pennsylvania, was relevant to assess the credibility 

of his testimony and that of the police officers. (See Trial Ct. Op., at 4-5). 

It also found that the footage was relevant to shed light on Appellant’s state 

of mind and to determine whether he intentionally fled from police in 

Pennsylvania. (See id.). After review of the record, we conclude that the 

trial court’s ruling was not an abuse of its discretion. See Stephens, supra 

at 1037. The footage depicting Appellant’s evasive behavior in New York

immediately after police terminated the chase tended to demonstrate 

Appellant’s knowledge that police were pursuing him when he drove at a 

speed of approximately one hundred miles per hour in Pennsylvania and that 

he “willfully fail[ed] or refuse[d] to bring his vehicle to a stop.” 75 Pa.C.S.A. 

3733(a). The footage undermined the credibility of Appellant’s testimony to 

the contrary, in which he stated that he was not aware that police were 

pursuing him when he left the Wal-Mart and that he did not speed toward 

the New York border in order to flee. (See N.T. Trial, 1/16/14, at 156-57, 

159-60). 
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Further, before the jury viewed the footage, the court gave a detailed 

instruction explaining that the portion of the video showing Appellant’s 

actions in New York did not serve as the basis for the prosecution, that it 

could not convict Appellant based on those actions, and that it could 

consider the footage only for certain limited purposes. (See id. at 138-39). 

This instruction, which the jury is presumed to have followed, eliminated any 

risk of unfair prejudice. See Commonwealth v. Burno, 94 A.3d 956, 977 

(Pa. 2014) (stating juries are presumed to follow trial court’s instructions); 

see also Commonwealth v. Sherwood, 982 A.2d 483, 497 (Pa. 2009), 

cert. denied, 559 U.S. 1111 (2010) (concluding cautionary instructions 

ameliorated any undue prejudice caused by introduction of bad acts 

evidence). Accordingly, because we discern no abuse of discretion in the 

trial court’s admission of the videotape footage, Appellant’s sole issue on 

appeal does not merit relief. 

Judgment of sentence affirmed. 

Judge Panella joins the Memorandum.

Judge Olson concurs in the result.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 2/13/2015