Court Opinion

ID: 9753855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:33:07.171656+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:44.224010
License: Public Domain

Justice McCAFFERY,
dissenting.
Because I would conclude, under basic conspiracy law principles, that the heroin attributable to Appellant includes not only the amount that he sold to the undercover officer but also the amount recovered from his co-conspirator’s car, I must respectfully dissent.
“[N]o principle of law is more firmly established than that when two or more persons conspire or combine with one another[ ] to commit an unlawful act, each is criminally responsible for the acts of his associate or confederate committed in furtherance of the common design.” Commonwealth v. Roux, 465 Pa. 482, 350 A.2d 867, 871-72 (1976) (citation omitted); see also Pinkerton v. U.S., 328 U.S. 640, 646-48, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946) (holding that the acts of one conspirator in furtherance of the conspiracy that are reasonably foreseeable as a necessary or natural consequence of the unlawful agreement are attributable to the co-conspirators “for the purpose of holding them responsible for the substantive offense”); Commonwealth v. Eiland, 450 Pa. 566, 301 A.2d 651, 653 (1973) (“[T]he law imposes upon a conspirator full responsibility for the natural and probable consequences of acts committed by his fellow conspirator or conspirators if such acts are done in pursuance of the common design or *412purpose of the conspiracy.”); Commonwealth v. Thomas, 410 Pa. 160, 189 A.2d 255, 258 (1963) (“There can be no question of the legal responsibility of the accomplice for the act committed by his coconspirators while the crime agreed upon is in the course of preparation, for he is criminally liable for the natural consequences of the acts of his fellows under such circumstances.”). Courts of this Commonwealth, as well as the federal courts, have repeatedly invoked this general principle to attribute the illegal narcotics that are in the possession of one conspirator to all members of the conspiracy.
In Commonwealth v. Perez, 931 A.2d 703 (Pa.Super.2007), an undercover police officer observed the appellant sell heroin to three individuals within approximately one-half hour while standing in front of the home of one Arthur Maddox. At one point during the heroin sales, Mr. Maddox exited his home, handed the appellant more packets of heroin, accepted money from the appellant, and then sat in a parked vehicle in front of his home, watching the appellant. After the third sale, the appellant handed Mr. Maddox more money and the heroin packets. Id. at 705-06, 709. The appellant and Mr. Maddox were both arrested shortly thereafter. A post-arrest search of Mr. Maddox’s home yielded more packets of heroin, marked identically to those that had been sold by the appellant. Id. at 706. The appellant was convicted of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and criminal conspiracy. To calculate the total amount of heroin attributable to the appellant for sentencing purposes, the trial court added together the amount sold by the appellant during the observed buys, and the amount recovered from the home of Mr. Maddox, his co-conspirator. Because this total was more than one gram, the trial court imposed a mandatory minimum sentence pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. § 7508. Perez, supra at 706 & n. 5.
The appellant challenged the trial court’s imposition of a mandatory minimum sentence, arguing that the heroin found in his co-conspirator’s home should not have been attributed to him. The Superior Court denied relief, reasoning as follows:
Because the Commonwealth proved conspiracy, it did not have to prove [the appellant’s] constructive possession of the *413drugs found in [his co-conspirator’s] home. As a result of the conspiracy, the drugs in the home were fully attributable to [the appellant] as well as [to his co-conspirator].
Id. at 709.
The Superior Court reached a similar result nearly ten years earlier in Commonwealth v. Holt, 711 A.2d 1011 (Pa.Super.1998), a case in which the appellant was convicted of, inter alia, possession with intent to deliver cocaine and criminal conspiracy. On appeal, the appellant challenged, inter alia, his conviction for possession with intent to deliver cocaine, arguing that because the arresting officers had found all the cocaine in his co-conspirator’s travel bag, and thus presumably in his co-conspirator’s possession, the evidence was not sufficient to show that the cocaine was in the appellant’s possession. The Superior Court denied relief, explaining as follows: “when the appellant was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to deliver [the cocaine recovered in his co-conspirator’s travel] bag, he is also culpable for the crime itself, [ie.,] possession with intent to deliver cocaine.” Id. at 1017.
In cases similar to Perez and Holt, the federal courts have reasoned similarly. See, e.g., United States v. Payne, 591 F.3d 46, 70 (2d Cir.2010) (concluding that the defendant-appellant “was accountable for ‘all reasonably foreseeable quantities’ of crack distributed by the conspiracy of which he was a member”) (citation omitted); United States v. Garcia, 655 F.2d 59, 63 (5th Cir.1981) (concluding that “since the participants in the conspiracy ... apparently possessed the drug, Garcia, as a co[-]conspirator, will be considered to have had it also” and that a co-conspirator “assumed responsibility for the [cocaine] possession by his co[-]participants by joining the conspiracy”).
I believe that these decisions from our Superior Court and the federal circuit courts are instructive and persuasive here. In fact, the circumstances of the instant case are very similar to those in Perez, swpra.
As the majority summarizes, Appellant and his co-conspirator, William Wilson, collaborated in the sale of a bundle of heroin to an undercover officer on July 6, 2004. Specifically, *414after the officer requested a second bundle of heroin from Appellant that day, Appellant made a phone call and then directed the officer to drive to a particular location, where Appellant met Mr. Wilson, who was sitting in a gold Buick. Appellant and Mr. Wilson shook hands and briefly conversed; Mr. Wilson gave Appellant 13 packets of heroin from the Buick; Appellant gave the packets to the officer in exchange for $120; Appellant then gave Mr. Wilson the $120 as well as some other money; and the two men shook hands again. Appellant and Wilson were arrested shortly thereafter, and a post-arrest search of the gold Buick revealed 12 additional packets of heroin therein.
These facts are obviously similar to those of Perez, supra, where the appellant made three sales of heroin in front of the home of his co-conspirator, who retrieved more heroin from the home to give to the appellant to sell. As discussed above, the Superior Court held there that heroin found in the co-conspirator’s home was attributable to the appellant simply by reason of the conspiracy. I believe the same legal principle should apply here, with the result that the heroin found in Mr. Wilson’s car is attributable to Appellant as a co-conspirator. Accordingly, I would conclude that if the sum of the heroin sold by Appellant and the heroin found in his co-conspirator’s car was at least one gram, then the trial court properly imposed a mandatory minimum sentence for possession with intent to deliver heroin pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. § 7508(a)(7)(i).
While acknowledging the above principles, the majority declines to apply them here because it concludes that the facts adduced at trial “did not establish the existence of any continuing criminal conspiracy between Appellant and Wilson to sell additional quantities of heroin beyond that involved in the single transaction on July 6, 2004,” ie., the purchase by the undercover officer. Majority Opinion (Todd, J.), Op. 404, 26 A.3d at 1092 (emphasis added). The majority finds “nothing in the evidence to support a conclusion that the conspiracy between Appellant and Wilson continued after Appellant delivered that [heroin] bundle to [the officer].” Id. at 405, 26 A.3d at 1092-93. In the majority’s view, the evidence suggests that *415“Appellant was a ‘freelance’ middleman who worked for, or with, no one person in particular, but would, instead, obtain heroin for buyers from whatever source was most convenient and available at the time a buyer’s request was made.” Id. Respectfully, I am unable to agree with the majority’s interpretation of the evidence and its narrowing of the scope of the criminal conspiracy to a single drug sale. In my view, the majority has failed to acknowledge the significance of evidence supporting a broader conspiracy, and thus has not credited the trial court’s finding that Appellant and Mr. Wilson “were actively engaging in an ongoing criminal conspiracy to sell heroin.” Trial Court Opinion, filed 5/26/06, at 6.
The evidence from which I believe one can infer a broader conspiracy can be summarized as follows. The undercover officer had purchased heroin from Appellant on three different days by calling his cell phone number and arranging a pickup, which was always, at Appellant’s direction, on the corner of Seventh Street and Girard Avenue in Philadelphia. On July 6, 2004, the day of the last purchase, when the undercover officer asked Appellant for yet another bundle of heroin, Appellant immediately made a phone call to request it; he then reentered the officer’s car, and directed him to drive a couple of blocks to where Mr. Wilson was waiting in his parked car. After Appellant and Mr. Wilson spoke briefly on the street corner and shook hands, the latter returned to his car to get a bundle of heroin from the glove compartment. Mr. Wilson gave the heroin to Appellant, who in turn gave it to the officer in exchange for $120 in pre-recorded buy money. Appellant then gave the buy money, as well as additional money from his pocket, to Mr. Wilson. Majority Opinion, at 386-87, 26 A.3d at 1081-82; Trial Court Opinion at 1-2.
Thus, one can conclude that Appellant was in the business of selling heroin on a particular street corner. One can also reasonably infer that Mr. Wilson was working his drug trade in the same neighborhood as Appellant, because he was waiting in his parked car, with heroin packets, when Appellant and the officer arrived from only a couple of blocks away right after Appellant made the phone call to obtain the heroin. *416When the officer made his additional and unexpected request of Appellant for more heroin on the day in question, Appellant was immediately able to make contact with Mr. Wilson and to obtain from him the heroin sought by the officer. Tellingly, at the end of the transaction, Appellant gave Mr. Wilson more than the $120 paid by the officer for the heroin packets just purchased; Appellant also took other money from his pocket and gave that to Mr. Wilson as well.
From these circumstances, I cannot conclude, as does the majority, that the interaction between Appellant and Mr. Wilson was nothing more than a single drug transaction. Appellant may very well have been, as the majority characterizes him, a freelance middleman who obtained heroin for buyers from not just Mr. Wilson, but from whatever source was convenient and available. See Majority Opinion, at 405-06, 26 A.3d at 1092-93. But this modus operandi is certainly not incompatible with the existence of one or more ongoing conspiratorial relationships. In fact, a “retailer” of heroin who serves as a middleman between the ultimate consumers and a number of different sources would appear likely to be engaged in numerous conspiracies to sell heroin. In my view, the above evidence supports the trial court’s conclusion that Appellant and Mr. Wilson were actively engaged in an ongoing criminal conspiracy to sell heroin. Accordingly, because a conspirator is legally responsible for any acts committed by his fellow co-conspirator to further the purpose of the conspiracy, including those acts committed in the course of preparation for the crime agreed upon, see Roux, 350 A.2d at 871-72; Eiland, 301 A.2d at 653; Thomas, 189 A.2d at 258, I would conclude that the heroin found in Mr. Wilson’s car was attributable to Appellant as a co-conspirator. It is eminently foreseeable as a natural consequence of an unlawful agreement to sell heroin that a co-conspirator would remain in the vicinity of the distribution site, equipped with heroin packets in his parked vehicle. Mr. Wilson did just that. Appellant, as his co-conspirator, should be criminally liable for the heroin found in Mr. Wilson’s car.