Opinion ID: 2365333
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Scher's Trial Testimony

Text: The Commonwealth's theory of the case was that the physical evidence (i.e., the condition of the gunshot wound, the angle of the wound, the appearance of Dillon's body at the scene, blood spatter on Scher's boots) was inconsistent with Scher's storyand the conclusion of those involved in the initial investigationthat Dillon died from an accidental gunshot wound. Accordingly, the Commonwealth presented expert testimony to support its theory that Dillon could not have been shot accidentally by a dropped shotgun. The Commonwealth also presented testimony from witnesses to support its theory of motive that Scher had been having an affair with Patricia and that Dillon knew about it. Confronted with the Commonwealth's case, Scher took the stand and admitted that his previous statements to the investigators in June of 1976 were false. He proceeded to explain what happened that day at Gunsmoke. A: Well, 3:00 [p.m., June 2, 1976] came and I was ready to go. I had my clothes on that I was going to wear to Gunsmoke. And Marty [Dillon] wasn't there.... So I got everything out of my house to put into my car. I took hamburger buns and relish and ketchup and mustard and potato chips; and I took my gun, the sixteen-gauge shotgun, and some clay birds and some ammunition toand put it in the trunk of my car. I waited for Marty until about 3:15 p.m. when he showed up.... And I asked Marty, Do you still want to go? ... Marty said, Yeah, I just bought a whole bunch of hamburger meat, let's go.    And we drove right up the road into Gunsmoke to the trailer there, the cabin. We got out, and we took out the food things, took out all the food stuff that we had to take up to the trailer. We sat down on the porch, and we had a beer and a cigarette, just unwound. Then from that point on, after finishing the beer, we put a couple beers in our pockets, actually, one each. We went back to the car and got the stuff we were going to shoot with. We got the clay birds and the ammunition and the guns and the bird thrower machine.    We got up the trail to where we there was a clearing where we shot clay birds. We set up the machine, the machine that throws out the clay birds, spring action. Q: Let me interrupt you a minute, Doctor. When you got out at Gunsmoke and you took the food and stuff up to [sic] trailer and you sat and smoked cigarettes and drank beer, what did you talk about? A: We talked about quite a couple of things ....we talked about Marty's upcoming trial that he was made a public defender. It was a murder case and he never tried a murder case. He talked to me a little bit about that trial. And that was about it before we finished our beer and went back up the trailer with the guns and Q: I'm sorry for interrupting you. What happened after that discussion? A: Well, that's when we went up to get the shooting paraphernalia. We walked up the Jeep trail to the clearing. And we set up the bird thrower and put down the boxes and started shooting.    Anyhow, we shot up about five or six rounds of ten. And the guns were hot, so we put them down. And we also ran out of clay birds. So we had to go back down the trail to the cabin and the car to get some more clay birds. We got to the cabin and we sat down and we drank a couple more beers, had a couple more cigarettes. We opened up some potato chips and ate the chips and talked before going back out there. Q: What did you talk about this time? A: Mostly we talked about the murder trial that he was going to be a defendant [sic] for.... We talked a little bit about my divorce proceeding. And then we left. We went out shooting again. So we walked back up the trail to the clearing. This time I shot first. He threw out ten birds for me, and then I threw off ten birds for him. He was still using the same gun, and I was still using the twenty gauge. Then my second round of ten, at the very end of the last shot, he turned to me, he said, Ann came to me and told me that you told her that you love Pat. I said, When did that happen? And I put down the twenty gauge and I broke it in half and put it on the log. And I walked over to him to his side. He said, it doesn't matter when it happened. I said, Do you believe her? He said, I don't know. She's crazy. I don't know whether to believe her or not. But with all the rumors and talk and gossip and gossip [sic] in town and my father's breathing down my neck about this gossip, I reallyI need to know. And he stopped and he looked down at the ground and it was like he it was like he really didn't want to know, but, you know, but then he looked up. He looked right at me in the eye. He said, I have to know. Are you and Pat having an affair? And I just hadI had to tell him the truth. He was looking me in the eye. I could no longer keep it from him. I said, Yes, we're having, not a love affair, but a physical affair. And then he became very anxious and very, very upset. He was sitting there on the log and he had his hand over his ears and he was rocking down and asked me a whole bunch of questions. And I don'tI don't remember his exact words, how he phrased the questions. I don't even remember the order that he asked them, but he wanted to know from me, he wanted to know how did this start. I told him it just happened. Pat and I were close together all the time. It just happened.    I was embarrassed to talk to him this way, of course. I was looking at the ground. I said to him, You know, this is as much your fault as it is anybody's. Then I hear a scream, yell. And I look up and he has the sixteen gauge gun in his hand, reached around and I I knewI just knew I had to get that gun away. I had to get it. I didn't know what he was going to do with it. I just knew with his state of mind at that time and my state of mind that it wasn't good to have a hold of a gun and I lunged. In a matter of that much time, I grabbed the gun and pulled away (indicating). We struggled and the gun went off. Notes of Testimony, 10/6/97, pp. 90-92, 94-100. Scher then explained why he decided to engage in a cover-up of and why he had lied to investigators, to the press, and to the public for the next twenty-one years. I was thinking, How can I tell anybody this accident happened like this and have anybody believe me in Montrose, what with all the rumors that were going on and me being a relative newcomer to the area and Marty's father is the mayor and I'm the only Jew in town, in the county? And I felt I couldn't tell anybody.    And I decided since it was an accident that I was going to make it into another accident. I couldn't face the public telling them the right truth of an accident. I had to make something up of another accident. So I made up the story about him running with the gun and tripping and falling. I was afraid that I would be convicted if I didn'tand if I was convicted, I'd never be able to practice medicine again. So I made up that story and took the gun that I dropped right when it discharged and wiped off the barrel with a handkerchief and put it back into my pocket. I took the gun and I put it with the muzzle facing his head where he laid. Then I untied his shoelace to make it look like there was something he tripped over. And I ran back down the trail to the cabin, past the cabin. I was going to go tell Mr. Russin to get help. N.T., 10/6/97, pp. 102-03. The jury convicted Scher of first-degree murder and the trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment on October 22, 1997. On appeal to the Superior Court, Scher raised numerous issues, including the claim that the twenty-year delay in filing charges against him violated his right to due process of law as guaranteed by the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions. The Superior Court reversed the Judgment of Sentence and discharged Scher, concluding that the Commonwealth had violated Scher's due process rights by delaying twenty years in charging him with murder. Commonwealth v. Scher, 732 A.2d 1278 (Pa.Super.1999). We granted the Commonwealth's Petition for Allowance of Appeal to address the question of when pre-indictment delay violates an individual's rights to due process of law.