Court Opinion

ID: 9737168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:18:02.407385+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:56.918306
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring.
It is argued the defendant had a statutory right to assert as a mitigating circumstance that he had no significant history of criminal convictions, and perhaps that is the case, but to hold the Commonwealth is precluded from rebutting the obvious inference created in the minds of the jurors by that assertion is a result certainly never contemplated by the legislature and one I see as totally absurd. Yes, a credible, albeit strictly technical, argument can be made to the contrary based upon our opinion in Commonwealth v. Goins, 508 Pa. 270, 495 A.2d 527 (1985), but in my view there is quite a difference between the Commonwealth asserting a statutorily defined aggravating circumstance and its ability to rebut the obvious inference created by the mitigating circumstance in question. In the latter instance the character of the defendant is made an issue necessarily and our law should not be construed in a fashion which would work to mislead a jury. The defendant, by electing to submit such a mitigating circumstance is in effect making his character an issue and must expect the rebuttal which normally follows. Counsel could not forecast the law being otherwise and, I believe, was not ineffective in not taking such a risk.
I join the majority.