Court Opinion

ID: 9711560
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:34:29.823577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:05.811333
License: Public Domain

*370LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority is not, as it opines, “constrained” to find error in the trial court’s ruling — to the contrary, the majority has reached out to arrive at this conclusion and cause yet another prosecution of a defendant convicted after a perfectly fair trial.
A prosecutor is not limited in his remarks to a jury to merely reciting the direct evidence, and he may argue and point out any legitimate inferences which may be drawn from that evidence. Commonwealth v. Tucker, 461 Pa. 191, 335 A.2d 704 (1975); ABA Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function, Section 5.8(a); and Commonwealth v. Starks, 479 Pa. 51, 387 A.2d 829 (1978). The evidence introduced in the instant case discloses that: a) the victim was very slight of build and mentally retarded; b) both the victim and appellant were intoxicated; c) the victim showed some sort of picture to one of appellant’s friends; d) appellant’s friend then put his arm around the victim, who was not previously acquainted with appellant or his friend, and the two escorted the victim into the bushes; and e) appellant had recently separated from his girlfriend. From this evidence, it is quite reasonable to infer that appellant and his friend had sexual motives in taking the victim into the bushes and, as the trial court which heard and observed all of the witnesses in this case noted on page 3 of its opinion: “we do not think a pronouncement from Dr. Freud was required as a prerequisite to the reasonable assumption that some sort of homosexual activity was afoot.” It was, therefore, clearly permissible for the prosecutor to argue this theory to the jury in his closing remarks, Commonwealth v. Tucker, supra, and the trial court did not err in denying appellant's request for a mistrial.
Furthermore, the prejudicial and inflammatory character of the prosecutor’s argument is not, as the majority asserts, “evident”. This was a heinous and brutal murder in which the victim was stabbed 57 times. The majority suggests that if the jury believed appellant’s contention that this merciless attack was provoked by a single slap in the face *371(not a blow), it could have found that appellant did not possess a design to kill while inflicting 57 stab wounds. This suggestion is absurd. And, the majority’s conclusion that a reference to the possibility of homosexual activity by adults could have so inflamed the jury as to prevent them from giving objective consideration to appellant’s degree of guilt in stabbing a person more than 50 times, is even more ludicrous. In my opinion, as a matter of law, the type of attack involved here shows an intent to kill and, also as a matter of law, a mere slap in the face could not affect that conclusion. Therefore, the prosecutor’s remarks were clearly unrelated to the jury’s verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree, the majority’s imagined connection to the contrary notwithstanding.
Accordingly, I dissent and would affirm the judgments of sentence.
KAUFFMAN, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.