Opinion ID: 1959948
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Error of the Trial Court

Text: First, Appellant argues that the trial court erred in permitting the Commonwealth to introduce evidence of a statement by Appellant at the time of arrest which incorporated other crimes evidence. The arresting officer testified that when Appellant was arrested in Georgia, Appellant asked the police what he was being arrested for. For murder, he was told. Appellant then replied, Which one? Appellant alleges that this statement creates the inference that Appellant was referring to more than one murder that he had committed, that this was therefore evidence of prior crimes, and that such evidence is typically inadmissible absent a specific exception. Appellant's argument is erroneous. Appellant's contention that this evidence referred to other murders committed by Appellant and that the jury would so interpret it that way is not a reasonable implication. In fact, it was only defense counsel that drew this conclusion in his closing argument, when he made a joke out of the idea that the Appellant may have committed so many murders that he had to inquire which among them he was being arrested for. The context in which this testimony was elicited would not create the inference that Appellant suggests. The response Which one? was an attempt by the Appellant to determine with whose murder he was being charged. The Commonwealth was clearly attempting to establish that Appellant had knowledge of the murder of Clarence Woodlock when he made this statement, and that an innocent person would not have such knowledge. Therefore, there is simply no prior crimes evidence here. Appellant also contends that the trial court erred when it ruled that Appellant could not offer evidence that he was right-handed  specifically, by signing his name for the jury to see  without being subject to cross-examination. Appellant argues that this ruling forced him to decline his name-writing demonstration and instead offer the testimony of counsel's assistant. Appellant fervently argues that such demonstration should not be subject to cross-examination. Regardless of the merit of that contention, we fail to see how Appellant could have been harmed by the court's ruling. Whether Appellant was right- or left-handed was of dubious relevance since according to the medical examiner who testified, handedness could not be definitively determined by knife wounds. Moreover, the testimony of the eyewitness indicated that Appellant used both hands while stabbing decedent. Finally, Appellant was in fact able to enter evidence as to his handedness; we cannot see how his demonstration would have been that much more probative than the assistant's testimony so that his being precluded from presenting it would rise to the level of error requiring a new trial. See Commonwealth v. Story, 476 Pa. 391, 383 A.2d 155 (1978) (error is harmless if evidence is so overwhelming and prejudicial effect of the error is so insignificant that it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the error is harmless).