Court Opinion

ID: 9630427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:10:51.377963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:38.268455
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority properly holds that error occurred when the prosecution, while impeaching one of its own witnesses, exceeded the permissible latitude of cross-examination. I must dissent, however, from the majority’s conclusion that this error was harmless.
The majority opinion contains two diametrically opposed and irreconcilable views. On the one hand, the majority properly points out that “there is no basis for an appellate court to intrude upon the fact-finding function of the jury.” The appellant is told: “the jury may believe all or only a part of or reject all of a witness’ testimony . . . (Emphasis added.) The majority then proceeds, by some unexplained process of divination, to say that the improperly admitted evidence did not harm the appellant because the jury accepted as truthful the testimony of all other witnesses.
How can this Court have such knowledge? None of us was present in the jury room. No member of this Court can make a judgment as to the credibility of any witness. We were not on trial. We did not see or hear any witness. We do not know who was nervous, who stared at the ceiling, who failed to look directly into the eyes of the examiner, who dropped voice volume in answering a crucial question, or who manifested any of the unlimited *388variations of human conduct which the law sums up in the phrase demeanor of the witness. We possess no formula to determine when the demeanor of the witness manifests truthfulness or lying. Each juror makes that judgment, consciously or unconsciously, based on his or her own formula gained through his or her own personal experiences.
The jury might have rejected the testimony of Lloyd Milton Wilson had that testimony not been properly corroborated by the inadmissible introduction of the out of court statements of Anthony Gwaltney. We don’t know whether they would have or not. Because we don’t know what evidence the jury accepted and what evidence it rejected, we have no way of knowing if that evidence which the jury did accept was “overwhelming.” Since we cannot know whether the evidence accepted by the jury was “overwhelming,” our determination of whether the error was harmless, as defined in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, reh. den., 386 U.S. 987, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), must be made by focusing on the prejudicial impact that the error had on the jury. If in the context of the entire trial, we can declare that this prejudicial impact was so insignificant that it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the jury’s verdict, then such error is harmless. If, on the other hand, the erroneously admitted testimony influenced the jury to accept as true other, properly admitted, evidence, it has had a significant impact on the jury’s fact finding process, and cannot be declared harmless beyond a reasonable doubt even though we later label the properly admitted evidence as “overwhelming.”
For these reasons I must reject the majority’s conclusion that an error, highly prejudicial to the appellant, was harmless because the evidence that might have been accepted by the jury was “overwhelming.” The majority should have followed its own admonition: “There is no *389basis for an appellate court to intrude upon the fact finding function of the j ury. ” (Emphasis added.)
The judgment of sentence should be reversed and a new trial awarded.