Opinion ID: 1487913
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of evidence for prima facie case

Text: At the preliminary hearing stage of a criminal prosecution, the Commonwealth need not prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather, must merely put forth sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case of guilt. Huggins, 836 A.2d at 866 (citing Commonwealth v. McBride, 528 Pa. 153, 595 A.2d 589, 591 (1991)). A prima facie case exists when the Commonwealth produces evidence of each of the material elements of the crime charged and establishes probable cause to warrant the belief that the accused committed the offense. McBride, 595 A.2d at 591 (citing Commonwealth v. Wojdak, 502 Pa. 359, 466 A.2d 991 (1983)). Furthermore, the evidence need only be such that, if presented at trial and accepted as true, the judge would be warranted in permitting the case to be decided by the jury. Huggins, 836 A.2d at 866. A single section of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, Section 3302, addresses the related crimes of Causing or risking catastrophe. Section 3302 reads, in relevant part, as follows: (a) Causing catastrophe.A person who causes a catastrophe by explosion, fire, flood, avalanche, collapse of building, release of poison gas, radioactive material or other harmful or destructive force or substance, or by any other means of causing potentially widespread injury or damage, including selling, dealing in or otherwise providing licenses or permits to transport hazardous materials, commits a felony of the first degree if he does so intentionally or knowingly, or a felony of the second degree if he does so recklessly. (b) Risking catastrophe.A person is guilty of a felony of the third degree if he recklessly creates a risk of catastrophe in the employment of fire, explosives or other dangerous means listed in subsection (a) of this section. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3302. The next section of the Code, Section 3303, then addresses the misdemeanor of Failure to prevent catastrophe, and it reads as follows: A person who knowingly or recklessly fails to take reasonable measures to prevent or mitigate a catastrophe, when he can do so without substantial risk to himself, commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if: (1) he knows that he is under an official, contractual or other legal duty to take such measures; or (2) he did or assented to the act causing or threatening the catastrophe. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3303. In Hughes, this Court noted that, in accordance with the fair import of its terms the word `catastrophe' is intended to be synonymous with `widespread injury or damage.' Id. at 311 (construing Section 3302(b)). Here, the trial court found that the Commonwealth had not made out a prima facie case of risking a catastrophe for the following reasons: [T]he Commonwealth asserts that by opening Club Heat in the face of a specific warning that the pier probably would collapse that night, the defendants acted recklessly, thereby causing death and injury. As to these assertions, the Commonwealth has clearly made out a prima facie case. But, these assertions are not sufficient under 18 Pa.C.S. § 3302(b), because there is simply no evidence that [appellees'] acts involved the reckless use or reckless handling of any of the forces or substances enumerated in § 3302. Trial Court Slip op. at 9. The Superior Court majority affirmed. In conducting its review, the majority inexplicably found it unnecessary to discuss any of the specific facts of the case. Instead, the majority summarily reasoned as follows: [S]ince the defendants are not alleged to have done anything that caused the pier to collapse, but merely ignored the natural forces and age of the pier and failed to prevent it from collapsing, they cannot be held to have employ[ed] ... collapse of building, which resulted in the tragic event. Karetny, 837 A.2d at 477-78 (quoting 18 Pa.C.S. § 3302). [8] On appeal to this Court, the Commonwealth points out that the trial court acknowledged appellees' recklessness and submits that its evidence satisfied the remaining elements of the crime i.e., creating a risk of catastrophe by the employment of any means of causing potentially widespread injury or damage. The crux of the Commonwealth's position is that the trial court erred in finding that the enumerated means for causing/risking catastrophe in Section 3302(a) are exclusive and also in finding that appellees did not employ any dangerous forces or substances. Indeed, quoting the actual language of Section 3302(a), the Commonwealth submits that a person is liable under the statute when he causes or creates the risk of catastrophe not only through the use of any of the enumerated forces or substances but also by any other means of causing potentially widespread injury or damage. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3302(a). Thus, the Commonwealth explains that the statute is broadly drawn to include all possible destructive forces within the capacity of human ingenuity. Commonwealth's Brief at 18. Furthermore, the Commonwealth argues that appellees, in fact, employed a dangerous force: i.e., they made a collapsing pier open to the public for their own profit, knowing it was about to fail, while actively concealing the danger from their unsuspecting victims. Finally, the Commonwealth argues that the trial court's ruling failed to take into account the evidence presented in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, as it was required to do. Appellees counter that their conduct was not covered by any of the enumerated means or forces listed in Section 3302(a). Appellees further argue that, because Section 3302 does not plainly and unambiguously cover their conduct, this Court must give the statute the most reasonable construction consistent with legislative intentwhich, they say, is that the statute was meant to cover more egregious conduct than what occurred here. Appellees submit that their conductwhich they pose as an omission rather than an actis covered exclusively by Section 3303 (failure to prevent catastrophe) and that to hold otherwise would make Section 3303 mere surplusage. Furthermore, appellees invoke the principle of esjudem generis, which provides that general expressions in a statute are restricted to things and persons similar to those specifically enumerated in the language preceding the general expression. Appellees imply that the catch-all phraseology in Section 3302(a) i.e., other harmful or destructive force or substance, or by any other means of causing potentially widespread injury or damageshould be construed, in light of the more specific preceding language i.e., explosion, fire, flood, avalanche, collapse of building, release of poison gas, radioactive materialto criminalize only a very narrow scope of dangerous activities. Finally, appellees urge application of the rule of lenity, such that any ambiguity in the text of Section 3302 should be resolved in their favor. Neither the Commonwealth nor appellees point to a controlling case in support of their respective positions. Indeed, our research uncovers no instance where this Court has considered whether facts similar to those sub judice properly amount to employment under the risking a catastrophe statute. Nor have we ever decided the proper scope of the catch-all phraseology of Section 3302(a). As all parties and the lower courts apparently concede, however, there is no question that the evidence below was sufficient to prove that appellees' conducthowever it is ultimately characterizedwas at least reckless. The sole question here is whether appellees' reckless conduct involved employment of dangerous means. For the following reasons, we agree with the Commonwealth that it did, for purposes of establishing a prima facie case. The Superior Court panel majority misapprehended the controlling facts, for purposes of prima facie evidence review, when it concluded that appellees merely ignored the natural forces and age of the pier and failed to prevent it from collapsing. The actual evidence, which we have been careful to set forth at the beginning of this Opinion, tended to show that, for approximately five and one half years, appellees allowed the structural soundness of their pier to steadily decline in large part because of the cost to repair it satisfactorily. According to such evidence, not only did appellees ignore or discount their own observations of the severity of the pier's decline, they also repeatedly and consistently disregarded assessments and warnings from their engineers that put appellees on notice of the increasing likelihood of the pier's collapse. Indeed, this evidence, if believed, shows that, on the morning of the very day that the pier collapsed, their engineer predicted the approximate tide-related time at which and the manner in which the pier would collapse. Appellees disregarded that warning. It would be one thing if appellees, faced with the prospect of the pier collapsing, simply allowed it to happen under circumstances where it would affect nothing but the continued existence of the pier. But, under the Commonwealth's evidence, appellees did not simply abandon the collapsing structure to the inexorable effect of natural forces. Nor did appellees abandon the structure while posting warning signs to keep persons away from the danger, or alert them to what appellees knew. Instead, the evidence adduced at the hearing would support a finding that appellees persisted in promoting the nightclub, booking in advance events at their several facilities on the pier. Moreover, this evidence plainly advances the Commonwealth's position that, on the night of the collapse, appellees engaged in what amounted to a literal cover-up: they ordered that the ever-growing crack in the floor of their banquet buildingtell-tale evidence of the very real calamity awaiting any person who ventured onto the premisesbe concealed. In short, the Commonwealth adduced substantial evidence indicating that appellees, after having been made specifically aware of the imminent danger that the pier posed to human life, took affirmative measures to keep that knowledge to themselves and, at the same time, took affirmative steps that exposed others to the risk. The evidence of appellees' conduct in this case was sufficient to warrant a jury in finding the reckless creation of a risk of catastrophe. Furthermore, while appellees' knowing disregard of the inevitable may not, in and of itself, amount to the employment of a means, substance, or force in risking the catastrophe, their action in continuing to advertise, promote, and hold open their facilities to the public, coupled with the act of concealing the fact of inevitable collapse from their patrons, is sufficient to warrant a jury in finding affirmative employment on appellees' part. While appellees can offer contrary evidence at trial and/or argue to the jury that they were guilty only of inaction, the jury is not obliged to accept such position in the face of the above-referenced evidence. Instead, the totality of the aforementioned factors would support a jury in finding that appellees' conduct and response amounted to employment of a means and created the risk. As to appellees' contention that the Commonwealth's evidence did not prove the use of any of the statutorily enumerated means, and that the openended any other means clause in the statute must be circumscribed to include only inherently dangerous means, we disagree. The language of the statute could not be clearer: Section 3302(b) states that a risk of catastrophe can be created by other dangerous means listed in subsection (a) and Section 3302(a) criminalizes, inter alia, any other means of causing potentially widespread injury or damage. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3302(a) (emphasis added). The Commonwealth is correct that, just as in Hughes (defendant dropped cigarette, igniting flammable materials and causing catastrophic fire) and Commonwealth v. Scatena, 508 Pa. 512, 498 A.2d 1314 (1985) (defendants discharged industrial and chemical waste into mine, from which chemical waste escaped into river), the means by which the catastrophe is risked in a given case need not be specifically enumerated in the statute nor must they be per se dangerous in the absence of other factors. On the contrary, it is only required that the means in a given case have the potential to cause a catastrophe. In writing the statute in this open-ended fashion, the General Assembly obviously accounted for the fact that a catastrophe ( i.e., widespread injury or damage) can be caused and/or risked by innumerable means. Here, under the Commonwealth's evidence, appellees' persistence in promoting the nightclub; keeping it open to the public for business; taking no measures to inform, warn, or protect the public; and affirmatively concealing the very visible evidence of the pier's impending collapse had the potential to causeand indeed, did causethe catastrophic death of three young women and injuries to forty-three others. For these reasons, we hold that the evidence presented by the Commonwealth was sufficient to make a prima facie showing that appellees recklessly created a risk of catastrophe in the employment of any other means of causing potentially widespread injury or damage. Furthermore, the evidence was likewise sufficient to make out the charge of criminal conspiracy to the extent that the object of that charged conspiracy was risking a catastrophe.