Opinion ID: 2555770
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Jury Instruction as to Intent

Text: In Issue 5, Appellant challenges the following portion of the trial court's jury instruction, delivered at the close of the guilt phase: If you believe that the defendant intentionally used a deadly weapon on a vital part of the victim's body, you may regard that as an item of circumstantial evidence from which you may, if you choose, infer that the defendant had the specific intent to kill. N.T. Trial, 5/15/96, at 1562. Appellant asserts that this instruction diminished the Commonwealth's burden of proof and thereby violated due process because it did not require the jury to find that [Appellant] intended to aim the gun at a vital part of the deceased's body. [20] Appellant's Brief at 31 (emphasis in original). Appellant further asserts that counsel was ineffective for failing to raise this issue in post-verdict briefing or on direct appeal. Appellant again fails to acknowledge that, throughout the guilt phase of trial, he represented himself, and thus, as we have discussed in Issues 3 and 4 supra, no claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel during the guilt phase is available to him. See Bryant, 855 A.2d at 738-39 (rejecting the appellant's claim of counsel ineffectiveness based on failure to request a cautionary instruction upon the introduction of bad acts evidence, because the appellant was representing himself when the complained-of evidence was introduced and he failed to object or to request a cautionary instruction). As we also discussed in Issue 4, because the issue was not preserved with a contemporaneous objection, it was waived; direct appeal counsel was not, and could not have been, ineffective for failing to raise a waived issue. [21] Appellant is entitled to no relief.