Case Name: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Willie Lewis PERRY, Appellant
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1977-10-28
Citations: 475 Pa. 1
Docket Number: No. 424
Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Willie Lewis PERRY, Appellant.
Judges: Before JONES, C. J., and EAGEN, O’BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY, NIX, MANDERINO and PACKED, JJ.
Reporter: Pennsylvania State Reports
Volume: 475
Pages: 1–14

Head Matter:
379 A.2d 545
COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Willie Lewis PERRY, Appellant.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Submitted Oct. 13, 1976.
Decided Oct. 28, 1977.
D. M. Masciantonio, Philadelphia, for appellant.
F. Emmett Fitzpatrick, Dist. Atty., Steven H. Goldblatt, Asst. Dist. Atty., Chief, Appeals Div., John DiDonato, Philadelphia, for appellee.
Before JONES, C. J., and EAGEN, O’BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY, NIX, MANDERINO and PACKED, JJ.

Opinion:
OPINION
MANDERINO, Justice.
Appellant, Willie Lewis Perry, was convicted of murder in the second degree, possession of an instrument of crime, carrying firearms on a public street, and unlawfully carrying a firearm without a license. Post-verdict motions were heard and denied, and the appellant received a sentence of five to ten years imprisonment for the murder conviction. This appeal, involving only the murder conviction, followed.
The appellant asks that judgment of sentence be reversed and a new trial granted. He argues that his confession should have been suppressed because at the time of the interrogation, which produced the confession, his mental and physical condition were such so as to render the statement involuntary.- We agree and thus reverse the judgment of sentence and award a new trial. Our decision makes it unnecessary to consider the merits of appellant's argument that oral admissions and signed statements were obtained by the police during an unnecessary delay between arrest and arraignment in violation of Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 130.
At 8:00 p. m., on February 15, 1974, the appellant and a friend arrived at the home of Leonard Moore to visit Moore's daughter and her friend who was visiting her. A short time after appellant's arrival, Leonard Moore returned home and ordered appellant and his friend out of his home. Moore accompanied the two men outside the house.
Moore's wife testified that her husband was shot by appellant as he turned to return to his home. Appellant testified that he thought Moore had a pistol and was about to shoot him. Moore died at 3:10 a. m., on February 16, 1974. The cause of death was gunshot wounds of the trunk area.
At 8:30 p. m., shortly after the shooting, police officers, who had received a call reporting the incident, saw appellant three blocks from Moore's home. The officers called to appellant, and as he fled he suffered an accidental, self-inflicted, gunshot wound. The appellant was immediately arrested and taken to the emergency ward of Methodist Hospital in Philadelphia. He had a gunshot wound in the chest. From the emergency ward he was taken to the x-ray department where x-rays of his chest and abdomen were taken. He was then returned to the emergency ward where his wound was administered to, although the bullet lodged in appellant's chest was not removed. Appellant was then transferred to a small cubicle located within the intensive care unit of the hospital. Throughout the night medical personnel monitored appellant's vital signs. A police guard was stationed nearby.
Around 4:00 a. m., after complaining of pain, appellant was given fifty milligrams of demerol, a pain killing drug whose effects last about four hours. Around 9:00 a. m., appellant was given an antibiotic, tetracycline. At that time he was also given a tetanus toxoid shot. Sometime between 9:00 a. m. and 9:55 a. m., a detective requested and received permission from a nurse to question the appellant. At 9:55 a. m., on February 16, approximately thirteen hours after his arrest, the detective informed appellant of his constitutional rights and appellant indicated that he would give a statement. The interrogation continued for about one hour and twenty minutes, until 11:15 a. m. During this time appellant gave and signed an incriminating statement.
During the interview appellant was lying in bed and was alone in the room with the interrogating detective. During the interview he complained to the detective of pain and was experiencing discomfort from a catheter inserted through the penis into the bladder in order to monitor for any abnormal bleeding indicating injury to the bladder, urinary tract or kidney. At one point during the interview, when the appellant complained of pain, he asked the detective to call the nurse. When the nurse arrived, the appellant informed her that he was in pain and wanted some type of medication. Medication, however, was refused. Throughout the interview, appellant was being fed through an intravenous tube. The catheter remained in the appellant for over two days and the intravenous feeding continued constantly for about four days. At one point during the interrogation, appellant was asked by the detective if he wanted to continue the interrogation and the appellant answered that he "didn't care."
In Commonwealth ex rel. Gaito v. Maroney, 422 Pa. 171, 176-77, 220 A.2d 628, 630 (1966), we stated:
"It is a basic and fundamental principle of constitutional law that a defendant in a criminal case is deprived of due process if his conviction is founded, in whole or in part, upon an involuntary confession. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 375, 376, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 1780, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964); Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 541, 81 S.Ct. 735, 740, 5 L.Ed.2d 760 (1961). The introduction of such a confession over objection constitutes reversible error, see Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 306, 310, 83 S.Ct. 745, 755, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963); Rogers v. Richmond, supra, 365 U.S. at 540, 81 S.Ct. at 739; Stroble v. State of California, 343 U.S. 181, 190, 72 S.Ct. 599, 603, 96 L.Ed. 872 (1952), even though there is ample evidence aside from the confession to sustain the conviction. Jackson v. Denno, supra; Haynes v. State of Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 518, 83 S.Ct. 1336; 1345-1346, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963); Malinski v. People of State of New York, 324 U.S. 401, 404, 65 S.Ct. 781, 783, 89 L.Ed. 1029 (1945)."
The line between a voluntary and an involuntary confession is one composed of subtle gradations. Commonwealth v. Snyder, 427 Pa. 83, 233 A.2d 530 (1967), cert. denied 390 U.S. 938, 19 L.Ed.2d 1281, 88 S.Ct. 1104 (1967). Our determination of this matter requires careful consideration of all circumstances surrounding the confession. We ask ourselves if the confession is the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker. Commonwealth ex rel. Gaito v. Maroney, supra, 422 Pa. at 177, 220 A.2d at 631.
The legislature has recognized in another context that statements made by injured persons in a hospital setting raise very serious questions as to whether such statements should be recognized as valid by the law. The Act of June 9, 1972, P.L. 359, No. 97, 12 P.S. § 1630, et seq., prohibits the use of either written or oral statements for the purposes of civil litigation when they are obtained in a hospital from an injured patient within fifteen days of the occurrence causing the injury. In fact, statements obtained from a patient in a hospital may be legally recognized only if five days prior to the giving of the statement the injured patient has signified by' a notarized writing a willingness to give the statement. Although the Act of 1972 is not applicable in criminal cases and is thus not controlling in the matter before us, it clearly indicates recognition that decisions made by injured persons in a hospital setting must be considered extremely suspect.
In considering voluntariness an accused's physical and mental condition must be considered, for sickness and ill health may well influence his will to resist. Commonwealth v. Holten, 432 Pa. 11, 247 A.2d 228 (1968). In the present case, prior to interrogation, the appellant had been hospitalized with a gunshot wound. At the time of interrogation the bullet remained logged beneath his chest wall. He was being fed intravenously, and had a catheter through his penis leading into his bladder causing much discomfort. He was under police guard and had not seen a familiar face for more than twelve hours before the interrogation. During the interrogation he asked for and was denied medication for pain.
Under the circumstances, we are unable to conclude that the appellant's confession was the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice. Appellant's confession should have been suppressed.
The prosecution contends that the admission of the incriminating statement was harmless error because the appellant, according to the prosecution, gave essentially the same statement during the trial while testifying in his own behalf. There are some constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error, see Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), and we adhere to the view that a conviction founded in whole or part on an involuntary confession denies a defendant due process of law and constitutes reversible error, regardless of whether there is ample evidence aside from the confession to sustain the conviction. Commonwealth ex rel. Gaito v. Maroney, supra. See also Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 376, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908, 915 (1964); Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U.S. 560, 567-68, 78 S.Ct. 844, 2 L.Ed.2d 975, 981 (1958). Moreover, we cannot agree with the prosecution that appellant's courtroom testimony was essentially the same as the facts contained in the incriminating statement. Appellant did not deny shooting the victim. The issue was whether or not the appellant acted in self-defense. In his trial testimony appellant testified that he saw the victim reach into his car and pull out a metallic instrument just before the victim came toward the appellant. Appellant thought that the victim was about to shoot him. The statement taken at the hospital and recorded by the detective was different. In that statement appellant said that when the victim reached into the car it was dark and he could not see if the victim had anything in his hand. This variance was significant and we cannot say that the jury's deliberations and verdict were not affected by the inconsistency.
Judgment of sentence is reversed and a new trial granted.
EAGEN, C. J., and NIX, J., concurred in the result.
POMEROY, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which O'BRIEN and PACKEL, JJ., joined.