Court Opinion

ID: 9697213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:08:41.656438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:29.968796
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I join in that portion of the majority’s opinion affirming appellant’s conviction for murder of the first degree, but dissent with respect to the majority’s affirmance of the sentence of death.
During the sentencing hearing, the prosecution made numerous arguments to the jury that constituted improper appeals to the passions and sympathies of the jurors. It is established that, at the sentencing hearing in a first degree murder case, “the Commonwealth, just as the defense counsel, must have reasonable latitude in arguing his position to the jury.” Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer, 500 Pa. at 55, 454 A.2d at 958. See also Commonwealth v. Travaglia, 502 Pa. 474, 498-503, 467 A.2d 288, 300-302 (1983), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1256, 104 S.Ct. 3547, 82 L.Ed.2d 850 (1984). Indeed, the Sentencing Code itself provides that after “the presentation of evidence, the court shall permit counsel to present argument for and against the sentence of death.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9711(a)(3). Nevertheless, the prosecutor is not permitted to arouse the emotions of the jury “to such a degree that it becomes impossible for the jury to impose sentence based on consideration of the relevant evidence according to the standards of the statute.” Commonwealth v. Travaglia, 502 Pa. at 502, 467 A.2d at 302.
In Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer, 500 Pa. at 53-54, 454 A.2d at 956-957, this Court set forth guidelines governing the review of claims of allegedly improper and prejudicial remarks made by prosecutors during arguments at sentencing hearings, and, quoting Commonwealth v. Brown, 489 Pa. 285, 297-298, 414 A.2d 70, 76 (1980), the guidelines were set forth:
*260The primary guideline in assessing a claim of error of this nature is to determine whether the unavoidable effect of" the contested comments was to prejudice the jury, forming in their minds fixed bias and hostility towards the accused so as to hinder an objective weighing of the evidence and impede the rendering of a true verdict. Commonwealth v. McNeal, 456 Pa. 394, 319 A.2d 669 (1974); Commonwealth v. Van Cliff, 483 Pa. 576, 397 A.2d 1173 (1979). In making such a judgment, we must not lose sight of the fact that the trial is an adversary proceeding, Code of Professional Responsibility, Canon 7, E.C. 7-19 — 7-39, and the prosecution, like the defense, must be accorded reasonable latitude in fairly presenting its version of the case to the jury. Commonwealth v. Cronin, 464 Pa. 138, 346 A.2d 59 (1975). Nevertheless, we do require that the contentions advanced must be confined to the evidence and the legitimate inferences to be drawn therefrom. Commonwealth v. Revty, 448 Pa. 512, 295 A.2d 300 (1972). Deliberate attempts to destroy the objectivity and impartiality of the finder of fact so as to cause the verdict to be a product of the emotion rather than reflective judgment will not be tolerated. Commonwealth v. Story, 476 Pa. 391, 383 A.2d 155 (1978). The verdict must flow from the respective strengths and weaknesses of the evidence presented and not represent a response to inflammatory pleas for either leniency or vengeance. Commonwealth v. Starks, 479 Pa. 51, 387 A.2d 829 (1978).
See also Commonwealth v. Pursell, 508 Pa. 212, 226-227, 495 A.2d 183, 190-191 (1985).
Applying these guidelines to the instant case, it is clear that the bounds of reasonable latitude were exceeded by the arguments of the prosecutor. As the following excerpts from those arguments demonstrate, the prosecutor violated all of the applicable standards.
Let me ask you something, ladies and gentlemen: [Defense counsel] says to you that you are not here for vengeance. Well, I say to you you are.
*261... He stands before you convicted as a deliberate, willful, premeditated killer, who acted with cruelty, hardness of heart and wickedness of disposition. You are here representing society. How much shall you turn the other cheek?
When you’re alone in your bedroom some night, if someone comes into your bedroom with a gun or a knife, what shall you do?
Shall you ask him whether he had a deprived childhood?
Shall you ask him how far he went in school?
Shall you ask him if he has problems making friends?

Do you turn the other cheek?

No. If you have a gun, you’re going to pull that gun out and you’re going to shoot him, because your primary objective there is to save yourself and your family from harm and your primary objective as you sit right there is to save society from any further harm by this individual.
Our society, for some years now, but particularly now, has been under attack. There are crimes that are so terrible that we’ve almost become jaded----
There are people all over the place committing terrible crimes and there’s a million reasons attributed to them. Deprived childhood. Insanity. Political belief. When does it stop?
Society says, “O.K. It’s all right to give people a certain amount of leeway to look at their actions and a certain amount of human compassion,” but don’t we reach a certain point where we say, “Our survival as a society is at stake. We simply have to put a stop to this. We’re not going to accept these explanations anymore. We’re going to defend ourselves?”
Ladies and gentlemen, I was reading last night from a document that was published nearly three thousand years ago. It was the Greek epic The Iliad and there’s a discussion about one of the generals. He was describing one of the many wars or battles described in The Iliad, his *262name was General Achilles, and he was described as follows:
“He has destroyed pity. Like a lion, he has gone among the flocks of men to devour them.”
That is a portrait of someone without pity, without feeling, and that was a portrait of this defendant on the morning [of the murder]. That portrait is three thousand years old. You say to yourselves, as intelligent, compassionate, sensitive people, there must be an explanation. There must be an excuse for this kind of sadistic, vicious conduct.
... [B]ut I say to you that you must acknowledge the presence in this world, ever since history has been recorded, of people who do evil, who are evil.
You can trace that concept through history. The Bible speaks of the Prince of Darkness. The personification of evil. All of our cultures, ancient and modern, primitive and civilized, have symbols for the presence of evil. The symbol abounds in our history and our literature. Shakespeare’s lago. The play Othello is the personification of evil. Adolf Hitler is the personification of evil. Six million people were killed____
There were people in Washington, D.C. about eight years ago. Someone went into a house and killed all the adults and drowned all the babies. There are people who you can hire to kill someone for money.
There is evil among us. There are people who don’t care for anybody or anything and I suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen, based on the evidence that you have heard, that this defendant is such a person.
I do not suggest to you that the defendant is an animal. That would be insulting. Animals kill for food. They kill to protect their young. It is only certain types of human beings who kill to satisfy other pleasures, such as money *263or sex. That is a degree of barbarism which animals apparently, in their dumb states, have never managed.
... His acts were intentional. He does not deserve your sympathy in any way, ladies and gentlemen.
The people who deserve your sympathy aren’t here and one of them will never be here again.
(Emphasis added). By these remarks, the prosecutor attempted to incite the jury with a fixed bias and hostility towards the accused, advanced contentions that were not confined to the evidence and the legitimate inferences to be drawn therefrom, endeavored to cause the verdict to be a product of the emotion rather than reflective judgment, and invoked a plea for vengeance and sympathy designed to make the verdict flow from other than the respective strengths and weaknesses of the evidence.
Indeed, in addition to the prosecutor’s express requests for vengeance and sympathy, and other comments contributing to an inflammatory tone, such as those stating that society is under attack and that the jurors need to respond to that attack, the foregoing excerpts contain attempts to incite the jurors to equate appellant with some of the most vicious and heinous persons in the literature and history of mankind: Achilles, a vengeful and merciless military leader who ravaged the countryside near the legendary city of Troy; The Prince of Darkness, otherwise known as the devil; lago, an inherently evil and malicious individual with no redeeming features, portrayed in Shakespeare’s Othello; and Adolf Hitler, the infamous, demented, racist, practitioner of genocide. The prosecutor even likened appellant to a mass murderer of babies, and to a hired killer. None of these analogies bears a significant relationship to the evidence presented in the instant case, and, clearly, each was intended to inflame the passions of the jurors. Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive of comparisons that would be more inflammatory than those which the prosecutor employed. Under these circumstances, one must conclude that the verdict of death may have been induced by the prosecu*264tor’s remarks, and, thus, the sentence of death should be vacated and the case should be remanded to the Court of Common Pleas for imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment.
NIX, C.J., and ZAPPALA, J., joins in this concurring and dissenting opinion.