Court Opinion

ID: 9540169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:13:18.314463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:41.115668
License: Public Domain

Justice SAYLOR,
concurs.
I join the majority opinion except for its treatment of the prosecutor’s remark comparing the two co-defendants at the penalty hearing. Both defendants had moved for severance of the penalty phases, in part to avoid such comparisons or other irrelevant considerations from spilling over from one defendant to the other. As recounted by the majority, after these motions were denied, the district attorney ultimately argued in closing that Appellant “comes from a good family” and that the jury should “[cjontrast that to Mr. Bond to some extent because he didn’t have a mother, so maybe you can take that into account[.]” N.T., May 10, 2005, at 115-16 (quoted in Majority Opinion, op. at 162, 985 A.2d at 907). The majority presently rejects Appellant’s assertion that this injected an arbitrary factor into the sentencing proceedings, in part because the prosecutor “was entitled to challenge Appellant’s argument that the jury should consider his family background as a mitigating circumstance.” Majority Opinion, op. at 163, 985 A.2d at 908.
Insofar as the majority’s explanation can be construed as an endorsement of the district attorney’s tactic, I respectfully demur. Particularly in the capital sentencing arena, I believe this Court should be careful to safeguard the individualized nature of the sentencing decision. See Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976) (plurality) (articulating that the Eighth Amendment requires a reliable, individualized process for capital sentencing); cf. Commonwealth v. Hughes, 581 Pa. 274, 363, 865 A.2d 761, 815 (2004) (noting that, where aggravating and mitigating circumstances are found, the selection aspect of capital sentencing entails a highly individualized weighing process). Here, the prosecutor undoubtedly sought to gain leverage against Appellant by reference to Bond’s childhood difficulties, although such difficulties had no relevance to Appellant’s character or the circumstances of the offense of *166which Appellant was convicted. Accordingly, I would not place this Court’s imprimatur on the district attorney’s remark. Nevertheless, in the context of the penalty hearing as a whole, the comparison between the upbringings of the two co-defendants constituted only a limited portion of the Commonwealth’s extensive closing argument, and was not so severe or egregious, in my view, as to require a new sentencing hearing. On this basis, I am able to join the result reached by the majority on this claim.