Opinion ID: 1914829
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Evidence in Support of Alibi

Text: Appellant's next claim is that counsel was ineffective for failing to offer evidence to support his alibi defense. At trial, Appellant's two roommates testified that he was with them on the night of the shooting, celebrating a job offer he had received that day from the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia. Trial counsel and the Commonwealth stipulated to the fact that Appellant had applied for a job at the hotel the day before the murder and that he began working at the hotel four days after the murder. Appellant argues now that trial counsel should have called hotel employee Jeffrey Berger to testify that Appellant was offered the job on the date of the murder. The PCRA court dismissed this claim without a hearing because it concluded that Berger's testimony would not have affected the verdict. [11] There was no error on the part of the PCRA court in dismissing Appellant's claim. The inference Appellant seeks to establish could have been drawn from the stipulation that was entered at trial. Further, what Appellant was allegedly celebrating on the night of the shooting was ancillary to his alibi defense. Front and center in Appellant's alibi defense was the testimony of his two roommates that they were with him at home on the night of the shooting. Appellant does not explain how proof that he had been offered a job on that date would have changed the verdict; thus, he failed to establish prejudice. Appellant cannot establish ineffectiveness and so is not entitled to relief. Commonwealth v. Edmiston, 535 Pa. 210, 634 A.2d 1078, 1092-93 (1993) (holding lack of prejudice is fatal to ineffectiveness claims).