Opinion ID: 1978964
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lassiter instruction

Text: In the penalty phase Appellant requested a jury instruction pursuant to this Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Lassiter, 554 Pa. 586, 722 A.2d 657 (1998) (plurality). Specifically, she asked that the trial court inform the jury that the only aggravating circumstance put forward by the Commonwealth  that the homicide had occurred during the perpetration of the felony of kidnapping, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(6)  does not apply to an individual found guilty of first-degree murder as an accomplice. [21] The trial court denied this request and explained in its opinion that the instruction was unwarranted because the jury did not specifically indicate that it found Appellant guilty as an accomplice. See Trial Court op. at 101. Appellant correctly claims that the trial court's reasoning was in error. The trial court included a charge on accomplice liability in its guilt-phase instructions. [22] It also presented a general verdict form to the jury and never requested that the jury indicate whether its finding of guilt was based upon principal or accomplice liability. Further, in the alternative to his arguments concerning principal liability, the prosecutor also argued that the jury should convict Appellant as an accomplice. [23] It is possible, therefore, that the jurors convicted Appellant as an accomplice, as they had plainly been authorized and invited to do. Hence, the trial court incorrectly characterized the requested clarification as irrelevant. Accord Commonwealth v. Spotz, 587 Pa. 1, 80 n. 36, 896 A.2d 1191, 1238 n. 36 (2006) (finding that, where the defendant's first-degree murder conviction was a general verdict that could have been predicated on accomplice liability,  Lassiter would have required the trial court to instruct the jury at the sentencing phase that the jury would first have to find that [the defendant] himself brought about the killing before it could find the Section 9711(d)(6) aggravating circumstance). [24] Nevertheless, this case is different from some others in which the Lassiter issue has surfaced in that the trial court specifically instructed the jurors that the (d)(6) aggravator applied only if the defendant committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony. N.T. 1442. This is materially distinguishable from situations in which trial courts have paraphrased the (d)(6) aggravating circumstance in the passive voice ( e.g., by indicating that the aggravator applies where the killing was committed in the perpetration of a felony), thus conveying that a defendant's actual perpetration of the killing is immaterial. By tracking the language of the statute, the trial court in the present case conveyed the essential information in an understandable form. In summary, the court erred in refusing to clarify that the (d)(6) aggravating factor does not apply to an accomplice who does not actually perpetrate the killing, upon Appellant's reasonable request, on the basis that this was irrelevant. Nevertheless, in view of the (d)(6) instruction actually given, a new penalty proceeding would not presently be required on the Lassiter claim.