Opinion ID: 1443106
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jury's Inspection of Appellant's Confession

Text: Appellant complains that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to read during the trial a copy of the police report in which Detective Dennis Logan recounted Appellant's confession. [16] Although the defense had no objection to the jurors seeing the confession when the Commonwealth moved for its admission, when the Commonwealth began to circulate twelve copies of the confession the jurors and the trial court was giving a cautionary instruction that the confession would not be available for the juror's inspection during deliberation, the defense did object and asked for a side-bar. The defense explained that while it had no objection to the jurors seeing the confession, it did object to them reading it. The trial court overruled Appellant's objection, and circulated copies of the confession at that time, however, the court did not allow the jury to take the confession into the jury room during their deliberations. Appellant now complains that it was error for the trial court to permit the Commonwealth to circulate Detective Logan's report among the jurors. Although Appellant recognizes that trial court did not send Detective Logan's report out with the jury during its deliberations, Appellant argues that by letting the jury read the report, the trial court violated the spirit of Pa.R.Crim.P. 646, which provides: (A) Upon retiring, the jury may take with it such exhibits as the trial judge deems proper, except as provided in paragraph (B). (B) During deliberations, the jury shall not be permitted to have: (1) a transcript of any trial testimony; (2) a copy of any written or otherwise recorded confession by the defendant; (3) a copy of the information; (4) written jury instructions. Pa.R.Crim.P. 646. The Commonwealth takes the position that no error occurred because the jury was not given the report during its deliberations. They emphasize that Detective Logan's report was only circulated to the jurors during the trial as he sat on the witness stand. They argue that Rule 646 is inapplicable, because Rule 646 only addresses what materials may be taken into deliberations. Finally, for a discussion of the purpose behind Rule 646, the Commonwealth relies on the Superior Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Morton, 774 A.2d 750, 753 (Pa.Super.2001), appeal denied, 567 Pa. 739, 788 A.2d 374 (2001) (stating that the overriding concern of Rule 1114 [later renumbered 646], which prohibits a written confession from going out with the jury during deliberations, is that the physical presence of the confession within the jury room may cause it to be emphasized over other evidence in the form of testimony heard from the witness stand.) The Commonwealth contends that the spirit of Rule 646 does not dictate what materials can be shown at trial. Instead, it only dictates what materials can be taken into deliberations. In Morton, the defendant's statement was detailed in a police report that he then reviewed, signed and adopted as his confession. Id. at 752. During deliberations, the jury asked to see it. Noting that jurors are not permitted to retire during deliberations with a defendant's written confession, the trial judge refused to send the report into the jury deliberation room. Instead, the jurors were re-empanelled in the courtroom and permitted to review the statement briefly while they were still in the jury box. They were then instructed not to give it undue weight and to consider it along with all other evidence presented at trial by both the prosecution and the defense. Id. at 753. On appeal, the defendant complained that the trial court erred in allowing the confession to be shown to the jury during deliberations, but the Superior Court rejected the claim. Analogizing the procedure used by the trial judge to re-reading a portion of the transcript for a jury in response to a question during deliberations, the Superior Court held that the concern arising from the rule limiting materials in the jury deliberation room was not implicated because the confession was never physically in the jury room during deliberations. Id. In the case sub judice, Appellant contends that allowing jurors to read Detective Logan's report in court put undue emphasis on the testimony over all other testimony that was presented to the jury by other witnesses. We are not persuaded. The spirit of Rule 646(b) is to limit the jury from having transcripts of testimony and a written or otherwise recorded confession of the defendant during jury deliberations so as not to cause the jury to place undue emphasis on a confession or transcript over other evidence in the form of testimony heard from the witness stand. Morton, supra . There is no prohibition against having jurors inspect properly admitted trial exhibits during trial, and Appellant has failed to cite any authority in support of such a contention. We find Rule 646 is not implicated under these circumstances because the jurors viewed the report during the course of Detective Logan's testimony at trial and they never had access to the report during their deliberations. Thus, Appellant's claim fails.