Opinion ID: 1516216
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sympathy for Appellant [44]

Text: Appellant next accuses the prosecutor of making an improper argument that the jury should not consider sympathy for appellant during its deliberations, citing the prosecutor's argument that: Mr. Greene is going to stand up here and he is going to say everything he can possibly say to get you to sympathize as he did with the evidence in this case with this defendant. I don't want you sympathizing with anybody, the victim or the defendant. It's not a matter of sympathy. It cannot be a matter of sympathy because then we are thinking with our guts and we can't do that. It would render our system of justice meaningless. N.T. 7/17/1995 at 77. Appellant contends his trial counsel was ineffective when he did not object to the argument or seek a corrective instruction from the trial court, and appellate counsel was ineffective for neglecting to pursue it on direct appeal. Appellant asserts that the prosecutor's argument was compounded by the trial court's instruction that: I don't want to sound cold blooded, but you must decide [the case] on the evidence, not on any sympathy, not on any prejudice, not on anything that influences you or raises passions in you. N.T. 7/18/1995 at 25. The Commonwealth argues that appellant's barebones boilerplate ineffectiveness claim cannot overcome his waiver of the claim, adding further that the underlying claim is frivolous. Commonwealth's Brief at 80. The Commonwealth includes a lengthy string citation to cases by both this Court and the United States Supreme Court rendering holdings directly contradictory to the underlying issue in appellant's ineffectiveness claim. The PCRA court rejected appellant's claim under Commonwealth v. Rainey, 540 Pa. 220, 656 A.2d 1326 (1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1008, 116 S.Ct. 562, 133 L.Ed.2d 488 (1995), reading the case to instruct that a sympathy charge was not required and, if one were given, the trial court is required to state that sympathy must be based on the mitigating circumstances. PCRA ct. slip op. at 21. Just as the United States Supreme Court has ruled, this Court has approved of trial court instructions that command the jury not to be influenced by sympathy in arriving at a verdict. See, e.g., Saffle v. Parks, 494 U.S. 484, 495, 110 S.Ct. 1257, 1264, 108 L.Ed.2d 415 (1990) (approving an anti-sympathy instruction, by concluding that: The objectives of fairness and accuracy are more likely to be threatened than promoted by a rule allowing the sentence to turn not on whether the defendant, in the eyes of the community, is morally deserving of the death sentence, but on whether the defendant can strike an emotional chord in a juror.); Commonwealth v. Blystone, 555 Pa. 565, 725 A.2d 1197, 1208 (1999) (noting anti-sympathy instructions do not generally violate the Eighth Amendment); Rainey, 656 A.2d at 1333-34 (defendant not entitled to blanket jury instruction that he is entitled to mercy without qualification because sympathy must only come from proven mitigating circumstances). This Court is also statutorily required to overturn any judgment that was the result of passion, prejudice, or any arbitrary factor. 42 Pa.C.S.  9711(h)(3)(i). When the trial court instructed the jury on aggravating and mitigating circumstances, it made clear that the jury could consider any evidence presented at the trial in respect to appellant's third proffered mitigating circumstance, the catchall mitigator. N.T. 7/18/1995 at 20. The trial court properly told the jury to consider the submitted aggravating and mitigating circumstances according to the evidence presented, but that it may not be abstractly swayed by sympathy or prejudice. Id. at 25. Appellant's underlying argument that the trial court's instruction was improper is simply factually and legally incorrect. Accordingly, his layered ineffectiveness claim does not entitle him to relief.