Opinion ID: 1441429
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Admissibility of Evidence of Unemployment

Text: The Appellant also urges this Court to hold that trial counsel was ineffective because she did not object to testimony from a police detective that Appellant was unemployed at the time of his arrest. This Court has held that the Commonwealth cannot use evidence of a defendant's unemployment to establish a motive to commit burglary. Commonwealth v. Haight, 514 Pa. 438, 525 A.2d 1199 (1987). However, in the present case, the Commonwealth did not elicit this comment to establish a motive and did not make any use of these references, which testimony was given when the detectives explained the Appellant's answers to background questions before confessing to these crimes. This case is therefore distinguishable from Haight, and we conclude that trial counsel was not ineffective for declining to object to this testimony.
The Appellant argues that the trial court erred because it did not instruct the jury to consider evidence of his involvement with drugs for a limited purpose. He also claims that trial counsel was ineffective because she did not request such an instruction during the penalty phase. However, the only references to the Appellant's drug activity during the penalty phase were introduced by the defense as mitigating evidence weighing against the imposition of the death penalty. Appellant's family members testified for him and said that drugs had led him astray and that his mother's drug and alcohol problems led to his involvement with drugs. He also introduced evidence that he had completed a drug rehabilitation program while he was in prison. Defense counsel used this evidence to argue that his drug involvement placed him in a position where others could coerce him to kill the victims. In our examination of this evidence and argument, there is no justification to conclude that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request a limiting instruction in this regard.