Opinion ID: 2313776
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Sufficiency of the Evidence for Torture Aggravator

Text: Turning to appellant's penalty-phase claims, appellant first claims that the trial court erred in submitting the torture aggravator, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(8), to the jury because the evidence was insufficient to support the aggravating circumstance. We see no error. Appellant argues that there was no evidence presented at the guilt phase (which was incorporated at the penalty phase) that supported a finding of torture, because there was absolutely no evidence produced at trial as to how this murder was committed. [15] Appellant contends that neither Dr. Rorke nor Dr. Lieberman testified that appellant beat Raymond to death, instead characterizing their testimony as establishing that the cause of death was an accumulation of old injuries that may have been exacerbated by the injuries inflicted on the night of his death. Appellant's Brief at 49. Appellant argues that, because the Commonwealth must prove that the defendant intended to inflict pain and suffering beyond that which is necessary to cause death upon the victim to establish the torture aggravator, the fact that the medical examiner could not point to a final blow that caused Raymond's death precludes a finding of torture. [16] Appellant concludes that without expert medical testimony establishing a final blow, the jury could not properly find torture, because the primary consideration in evaluating torture as an [aggravator] is how the murder was committed. Id. at 47. The Commonwealth responds that the evidence more than supported a finding of torture. That evidence established that, following a lengthy history of abuse in which appellant abused Raymond severely enough to disfigure his face and cause brain damage, appellant then beat Raymond to death over the course of twelve to twenty-four hours, stopping and starting whenever the six-year-old child cried. Section 9711(d)(8) of the Sentencing Code, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(8), provides that it is an aggravating factor if [t]he offense was committed by means of torture. To establish that a murder was committed by means of torture, the Commonwealth must show that the defendant intentionally inflicted ... a considerable amount of pain and suffering that was unnecessarily heinous, atrocious, or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity. Commonwealth v. Karenbauer, 552 Pa. 420, 715 A.2d 1086, 1099 (1998), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1021, 119 S.Ct. 1258, 143 L.Ed.2d 354 (1999); see also Commonwealth v. Cox, 546 Pa. 515, 686 A.2d 1279, 1289 (1996), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 999, 118 S.Ct. 567, 139 L.Ed.2d 407 (1997); Commonwealth v. Thomas, 522 Pa. 256, 561 A.2d 699, 709 (1989). Implicit in subsection 8 is the requirement of an intent to cause pain and suffering in addition to the intent to kill. Karenbauer, 715 A.2d at 1099 (internal quotation marks omitted). The intent to torture may be proven from the circumstances surrounding the killing. Cox, 686 A.2d at 1289. This Court has listed the factors to be considered in determining whether the torture aggravator applies as including, but not limited to: (1) the manner in which the murder was accomplished, including the number and type of wounds inflicted; (2) whether the wounds were inflicted on a vital or nonvital area of the body; (3) whether the victim was conscious when the wounds were received; and (4) the duration of the episode. Commonwealth v. Ockenhouse, 562 Pa. 481, 756 A.2d 1130, 1137 (2000). In reviewing a jury's finding of torture, this Court examines the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, and draws all reasonable inferences in its favor. Commonwealth v. Buehl, 510 Pa. 363, 508 A.2d 1167, 1181 (1986). This Court previously addressed the applicability of the torture aggravator in the context of a murder of a child by a parent in Karenbauer, supra . In Karenbauer, we determined that the finding of the torture aggravator was warranted in part because, had Karenbauer intended to simply kill the victim, he could have used his prohibitive size advantage and the knife in his possession to do so far more expeditiously than he actually did. Instead, he elected to cause eighteen separate wounds ... not deep enough to cause fatal injury, but certainly deep enough to cause pain to the victim, who remained conscious throughout her ordeal. Karenbauer, 715 A.2d at 1099 (internal quotation marks omitted). Like the victim in Karenbauer, Raymond suffered an array of wounds at the hands of his father/caretaker, all of which were distinct from the traumatic brain injury that caused the seizure that led to his death. These injuries included blows to the mouth that broke a tooth, blows to the eyes, jaw, and cheek, the back of the head, the neck, the forehead, the upper chest, and arms. Raymond suffered three separate brain hemorrhages, a hemorrhage in the thymus gland, and a spinal cord hemorrhage. Appellant's own description of the night of the murder detailed an all-night beating, where appellant repeatedly kicked, punched, hit, and stomped on Raymond because he wouldn't shut up. By appellant's own admission, Raymond was conscious throughout the hours-long beating. Nor was appellant's abuse of Raymond limited to the night of the murder; rather, appellant isolated and abused Raymond for a period of at least several months, subjecting him to prolonged beatings severe enough to be audible to appellant's neighbor and prompting his neighbor to call the police to report the abuse. The frequent beatings inflicted severe injuries, both visible and internal, that disfigured the six-year-old's face and irreparably damaged his brain. Raymond's injuries were painful, sustained over a long period of time, and the vast majority, if not all, were inflicted prior to death. As with his argument regarding the intent to kill, appellant's argument that there is no evidence to support a finding of torture because there was no final blow defies established law and common sense. Had appellant simply intended to kill Raymond, he could have easily done so. Instead, he chose to beat Raymond to death over the course of at least several hours, or, viewed more broadly, the course of months. The evidence amply supported the jury's finding that appellant inflicted all of the injuries present on Raymond, and that he intended to cause pain and suffering beyond that necessary to bring about the victim's death in doing so. Furthermore, given the fact that the jury found two other aggravating circumstances that appellant does not challenge, and rejected the statutory mitigating circumstances appellant pursued, there is an argument to be made that any error respecting submission of the torture aggravator was harmless. Our Death Penalty Statute provides that if the jury finds at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstances, then the verdict must be death. Buehl, 508 A.2d at 1181 (construing 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(c)(1)(iv)); see also Commonwealth v. Rivera, 565 Pa. 289, 773 A.2d 131, 139 (2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 955, 122 S.Ct. 1360, 152 L.Ed.2d 355 (2002) (sentencing procedure for first-degree murder requires sentence of death if jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstance). Thus, so long as one aggravator was sustainable, if there were no mitigators, the statute requires that the death sentence must be upheld. [17] What complicates matters here is that, although the jury rejected the statutory mitigating circumstances that appellant pursued, it listed mercy as a mitigator and then weighed mercy against the aggravators. Strictly speaking, a finding of mercy unmoored from a specific statutory mitigator should not trigger a capital jury's weighing process. The catchall mitigator in the capital sentencing scheme only permits a jury to consider [a]ny other evidence of mitigation concerning the character and record of the defendant and the circumstances of the offense. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(e)(8) (emphasis added). We have previously held, for example, that the testimony of a victim's mother regarding her personal opposition to the death penalty was inadmissible as a mitigating factor because the personal beliefs of a victim's family member do not fall within this definition. Commonwealth v. Bomar, 573 Pa. 426, 826 A.2d 831, 852 (2003). Similarly, mercy, as a stand-alone factor, is not a characteristic of the defendant or a circumstance of the crime, and thus does not fall within the catchall mitigator or any other specific mitigator. Of course, a jury may consider mercy or sympathy when weighing specific aggravating and mitigating factors, but it may not exercise its sense of mercy or sympathy in a vacuum. By the same token, appellant was entitled to present and argue any evidence that was relevant and admissible to statutory mitigators in his attempt to convince the jury to exercise its mercy or sympathy and return a life sentence. But the jury must correspondingly bottom any such exercise of mercy or sympathy on the evidence of specific mitigators. See Commonwealth v. Rainey, 540 Pa. 220, 656 A.2d 1326, 1334 (1995) (citing Commonwealth v. Zook, 532 Pa. 79, 615 A.2d 1, 13 (1992)). This rule is essential to avoid arbitrariness in sentencing, as [i]n the absence of a standard to guide the jury's expression of mercy and leniency, there would be no guarantee of consistency in sentencing across cases. Rainey, 656 A.2d at 1333 (internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, since appellant did pursue statutory mitigators, it is not apparent that considerations of mercy necessarily were inappropriate. We leave for another day whether the jury should be instructed so as to preclude its finding and weighing mercy if it does not issue a predicate finding of a specific, statutory mitigating circumstance.