Opinion ID: 5000457
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gail Stacy, Rose Stoddart, and the 911 Calls

Text: First, Gribble points to the police statement of O’Donnell’s friend, Gail Stacy. Gribble argues that Stacy would have testified to a romance between O’Donnell and the victim, one unbeknown to Gribble. He reasons this testimony supports his crime-of-passion theory, showing that he reacted in rage when he unexpectedly discovered O’Donnell with the victim. But this testimony is inadmissible hearsay. Pa.R.E. 801. And other parts of the statement undermine the theory—O’Donnell told Stacy that “she and [Gribble] had done something big and she had money,” described the murder to Stacy the day after, and said that Gribble had taken $196 from the victim’s pockets. (App. at 50, 52–53.) Under the circumstances, trial counsel may have had a sound strategy for not calling Stacy to the stand. Gribble also claims that trial counsel should have called Rose Stoddart, an employee of the victim’s store, to testify that she saw the victim give O’Donnell money from his cash register earlier that day. But Stoddart’s testimony supports the Government’s theory that 4 O’Donnell saw the victim as a source of money for her drug habit, a view she shared with Gribble. And Stoddart admittedly did not see the full interaction. Instead of Stoddart, Gribble’s trial counsel elicited testimony from another store employee to rebut the Government’s evidence. The claim that trial counsel was ineffective here is not substantial, because relying on one employee over another under these circumstances is a matter of sound trial strategy. Gribble then brings up two 911 calls placed from the scene of the crime around the hour it occurred. The first was from O’Donnell saying that her husband was beating her; the second was from someone requesting an ambulance because O’Donnell had “just had a seizure.” (App. at 59.) Gribble claims both establish a timeline of the killing supporting his heat-of-passion defense. But omitting this evidence was not unsound trial strategy. O’Donnell called 911 at 2:42 a.m., and police arrived at 2:50 a.m., reporting that no one would answer the door. If introduced, this call would have been scrutinized, and O’Donnell’s hospital records an hour later show no evidence of bruising and no corroborating statements made to hospital staff. Nor is the second call helpful, as the paramedic who responded to the scene testified that O’Donnell did not appear to have suffered a seizure. Both calls cast doubt on O’Donnell’s credibility, strengthen the Government’s theory of a conspiracy, and trial counsel reasonably elected to omit them.