Opinion ID: 1906630
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Use of Coroner Wood's Testimony

Text: Appellant claims that prior counsel was ineffective in failing to raise alleged prosecutorial misconduct because of the use of the testimony of the Coroner, Merle Wood, to establish the time of death. Appellant alleges that the time of death to which Wood testified differed from the time of death asserted by the Commonwealth in its opening statements to the jury, and that this difference prejudiced Appellant's ability to present his alibi defense. During direct examination, Wood testified that he arrived at the murder scene at approximately 3:00 p.m. on Friday. When questioned concerning the time of death, Wood testified: A: Well, it's very difficult to estimate time of death other than if you do it within a short period of time or after rigor mortis has started to leave the body, which normally may be  it takes place twenty-four hours or so later after death. This had not started to leave the body yet. We estimated this was an estimation of possible twelve hours to fifteen hours anyway. Q: Twelve to fifteen hours before you observed the body? A: Yes. Notes of Testimony, 1/19/82, p. 77. Since the coroner's testimony [13] stated a range for the time of death between midnight and 3:00 a.m. Friday, Appellant contends that trial counsel was ineffective for not raising a question of prosecutorial misconduct, when the prosecutor stated to the jury in his opening statement that Coroner Wood would testify that victim died between 8:00 p.m. Thursday and 3:00 a.m. Friday. Remarks in a prosecutor's opening statement must be fair deductions from the evidence that he or she in good faith plans to introduce and not mere assertions designed to inflame the passions of the jury. Commonwealth v. Brown, 551 Pa. 465, 711 A.2d 444, 456 (Pa.1998); Commonwealth v. Jones, 530 Pa. 591, 610 A.2d 931 (1992). The prosecutor is not required conclusively to prove all statements made during the opening argument. Brown, 711 A.2d at 456. If the prosecutor has a good faith and reasonable basis to believe that a certain fact will be established, he or she may properly refer to it during the opening argument. Id. Even if an opening statement is somehow improper, relief will be granted only where the unavoidable effect is so to prejudice the finders of fact as to render them incapable of objective judgment. Id. We find that, upon review of the statements of the prosecutor and the testimony of Coroner Wood as a whole, Appellant is not entitled to relief on this claim. The prosecutor apparently made this statement concerning the time of death based on the coroner's testimony at the preliminary hearing. During closing arguments, the prosecutor acknowledged that Coroner Wood's estimate placed the time of death between midnight and 3:00 a.m. Friday, but pointed to additional testimony from the coroner concerning the continuation of rigor mortis that supported the Commonwealth's time frame for the murder. Furthermore, Appellant's counsel made repeated use of the coroner's time-of-death testimony in closing arguments to support his alibi defense. We cannot find that the prosecutor's remark in his opening statements so inflamed the jury as to render them incapable of objective judgment, in light of the prosecutor's correction of those remarks in closing arguments, and the favorable use of the coroner's testimony by the Appellant in his counsel's closing remarks.