Court Opinion

ID: 9727796
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:50:30.156231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:42.981005
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
dissenting:
In my view, the judgments of sentence should be affirmed. Hence, this dissent.
I join in the statement of the case and the issues presented, as well as the recitation of the facts, contained in the Dissenting Opinion of my distinguished colleague, President Judge SPAETH. I also join in the conclusion set forth in Judge Spaeth’s Dissent that “threat of forcible compulsion” is not limited to threats of physical violence. I therefore conclude that the first issue on this appeal, the sufficiency of the evidence to establish the crimes of rape and attempted rape, must be resolved in favor of the Commonwealth.
The majority, having determined that the convictions of rape and attempted rape must be reversed and set aside, does not reach the second issue raised by Appellant, that the trial court’s instruction to the jury was inadequate. Judge Spaeth has considered the issue, and would agree with Appellant that the instruction was legally insufficient in failing to explain the meaning of “forcible compulsion.” On this issue, I must respectfully disagree with Judge Spaeth.
The question presented by Appellant in his brief is:
2. Whether the Court should grant a new trial to Appellant in that the Court’s instruction as to the definition of Forcible Compulsion or Threat of Forcible Compulsion was legally insufficient?
Brief for Appellant at 8.
Both the trial transcript and Appellant’s brief are clear that Appellant took exception only to the sufficiency of the evidence to support a charge of rape. Appellant did not challenge the trial court’s charge as being either “confusing” or “inadequate.”
*321At the completion of the charge, defense counsel requested, and was granted, an additional charge on the separate, possible verdicts that could be returned as to each of the counts in the information. N.T. 1/22/82 at 96-99. Defense counsel then entered the following specific exception on the record:
MR. GLEASON: I have one specific exception. For the record, we would specifically except to the points of charge that have already been refused by the Court. We would except at this time to the submission of the questions of rape, the three counts, and indeed the two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and on the grounds that as a matter of law the forcible compulsion element has not been satisfied by the characterization of a threat to return the girl to the detention home as constituting a criminal threat that satisfies the requirement. And accordingly, since that is a part of the corrupting the morals and the wrecklessly [sic] endangering, the same type of exception applies to those sections also, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I am going to deny that, I think that it is for the jury to make that determination. I am going to send out the joint exhibit No. 1, and the Defendant’s exhibit No. 2.
(Whereupon, the sidebar discussion was concluded.)
THE COURT: All right, members of the jury, take the case, give it your complete consideration and with the hope of arriving at a verdict.
(Whereupon, the jury left the courtroom to deliberate at 3:10 p.m.)
Id., at 99-100.
By this exception, counsel sought to contend that Appellant’s threat to return the victim to the detention home, if she did not submit to his demands, did not constitute a criminal threat cognizable under the rape statute. It is precisely this point which Judge Spaeth rejects in Section 1 of his Dissent. I concur with that rejection.
In his brief, Appellant argues:
*322Despite the fact that Judge Creany’s instructions seem to be in conformity with the [Pennsylvania Suggested Standard Criminal Jury Instructions], defendant contends that they were missapplied [sic] to the facts of this case. “The threat of return to the detention home” does not constitute force in connection with a sexual crime. Since no other type of force was mentioned in the charge nor any testimony regarding the use or threat of force was propounded, it seems obvious that Judge Creany was relying on defendant’s statement as the sole basis for instructing the jury on the issue of forcible compulsion or threat thereof____ Moreover, Judge Creany failed to amplify and explain forcible compulsion to the jury and he failed to state that each individual act required an act of “forcible compulsion” or a “threat of forcible compulsion that would prevent resistance by a person of reasonable resolution.”
Appellant’s counsel maintains Judge Creany’s instructions are legally inadequate in this case.
Brief for Appellant at 25.
It is clear that Appellant takes issue with the conclusion I would reach that forcible compulsion is not limited to compulsion by violence. His present claim that the trial court failed to amplify and explain forcible compulsion to the jury must be rejected, however. Appellant’s Requested Points for Charge did not include a request for any amplification or explanation as to the meaning of forcible compulsion.
My reading of the entire charge persuades me that it was, in fact, legally sufficient. I do not find the ambiguities which are apparent to Judge Spaeth, nor did Appellant cite to these so-called ambiguities in his appeal to this Court. His objection to the charge did not recognize, and was made without reference to, the ambiguities. Appellant objected to the charge because it did not state his theory of the law. By insisting on his mistaken point, Appellant failed to alert the court to the possible error that Judge Spaeth now considers sua sponte. Since Appellant’s objections at the conclusion of the charge were specific as to *323other matters, with no reference to the adequacy of the charge on legal compulsion, the objection—if any—has been waived. Commonwealth v. Frank, 263 Pa.Super. 452, 466, 398 A.2d 663, 670 (1979), and cases cited therein.
Accordingly, I would reject the second contention raised by Appellant as to the legal sufficiency of the charge on forcible compulsion.
With respect to Appellant’s third issue, that the convictions of indecent exposure should merge with the convictions of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, I find his contentions to be wholly without merit. Appellant received sentences of imprisonment at the Cambria County Jail on the convictions for rape, attempted rape, corrupting the morals of a minor, and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. In the aggregate, his imprisonment is a minimum of three years and a maximum of eight years. Appellant contends only that the trial court erred in refusing to arrest judgment or to merge the guilty verdicts as to indecent exposure.
At sentencing, the distinguished trial judge announced:
The two cases that remain, both addressing itself to indecent exposure, as you recall, initially when I started the sentencing process, I indicated to you that these were incorporated in the charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
So, the sentence on the first count of C-0448(d), the Defendant, Joseph Mlinarich is ordered to:
1. Pay the costs of prosecution.
2. Further sentence is suspended.
The second count of C-0448(d), the Defendant Joseph Mlinarich is ordered to:
1. Pay the costs of prosecution.
2. Further sentence is suspended.
Now, the effect of the sentencing which I have imposed is you will have three years of jail time with eight years *324of extended time and all service of the incarceration will be in the Cambria County Jail.
Sentencing Proceedings, 10/19/82 at 30.
The short answer to Appellant’s contention is that a merger issue cannot arise unless and until sentences of imprisonment have been imposed on the charges for which merger is sought. Here, Appellant was never sentenced to undergo imprisonment on either of the charges involving indecent exposure. The sentence cannot be modified or merged. Since I find the issue to be without merit, I take no position on the “illegality” of a suspended sentence.
The fourth issue seeks to challenge the competency of the fourteen-year-old complainant to testify. I join in Section 4 of Judge Spaeth’s Dissenting Opinion which finds no error in the trial court’s ruling that the victim was competent to testify.
Based upon all of the foregoing, I would affirm the judgments of sentence.