Court Opinion

ID: 9761543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:45:17.974974+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:24.312113
License: Public Domain

NIX, Justice,
concurring.
Although I agree that appellant’s trial counsel was ineffective and that appellant is deserving of a new trial, I do so for reasons entirely different from those set forth in the Opinion of the Court.
I do not believe that appellant’s attempted heat of passion argument has any foundation in our present law. Before deciding whether a defendant acted in the heat of passion, it first must be found that the defendant was exposed to sufficient provocation. See Commonwealth v. Whitfield, 475 Pa. 297, 380 A.2d 362 (1977). It is also settled that an objective test, rather than a subjective standard, is to be applied in determining whether there was serious provocation to reduce homicide to voluntary manslaughter. Com*515monwealth v. Miller, 473 Pa. 398, 374 A.2d 362 (1977). This rule is of long standing in our jurisprudence, see Commonwealth v. Whitfield, 475 Pa. 297, 304, 380 A.2d 362 (1977); Commonwealth v. Miller, supra; Commonwealth v. Stasko, 471 Pa. 373, 384, 370 A.2d 350 (1977); Commonwealth v. McCusker, 448 Pa. 382, 389, 292 A.2d 286 (1972); Commonwealth v. Robinson, 452 Pa. 316, 323, 305 A.2d 354 (1973); Commonwealth v. Brown, 436 Pa. 423, 427-28, 260 A.2d 742 (1969); Commonwealth v. Walters, 431 Pa. 74, 82, 244 A.2d 757 (1968); Commonwealth v. Yeager, 329 Pa. 81, 86, 196 A. 827 (1938); Abernathy v. Commonwealth, 101 Pa. 322 (1882); Lynch v. Commonwealth, 77 Pa. 205, 208 (1873); Commonwealth v. Drum, 58 Pa. 9, 17 (1868); Kilpatrick v. Commonwealth, 31 Pa. 198 (1858); Commonwealth v. Mosler, 4 Pa. 264 (1846). Today the majority sweeps away this rule based upon Commonwealth v. McCusker, supra. McCusker, however explicitly held that an objective standard is required to be applied in determining whether there was sufficient provocation. 448 Pa. at 389, 292 A.2d at 289.
Just two short years ago this Court ruled that subjective psychiatric evidence is not relevant to a determination of whether the defendant acted under sufficient provocation. In Commonwealth v. Stasko, supra, six members of the Court held:
In Commonwealth v. McCusker, 448 Pa. 382, 292 A.2d 286 (1972), we held that psychologic and psychiatric evidence was admissible for the limited purpose of determining whether a defendant acted in the heat of passion at the time of the offense. There, relevant evidence of mental disorders which contributed to the impassioned state was withheld by the trial court from the jury. This ruling was found to be erroneous:
“As an aid to the jury . . . this Court has traditionally allowed an accused to offer testimony in an effort to establish his state of mind at the time of the crime.” Id., 448 Pa. at 391, 292 A.2d at 290.
No such evidence was offered, however, in the instant matter. The psychologist was introduced to testify con*516cerning the appellant’s tendency to have a short temper and erupt in sudden rages. The purpose of the testimony was to. show that, in the case of this particular accused, there was sufficient provocation for the' attack. This evidence was clearly inadmissible:
“Our law is quite explicit that the determination of whether a certain quantum of provocation is sufficient to support the defense of voluntary manslaughter is purely an objective standard.” Id., 448 Pa. at 389, 292. A.2d at 289.
The test for adequate provocation is “whether a reasonable man, confronted with this series of events, became impassioned to the extent that his mind was ‘incapable of cool reflection.’ ” Id., 448 Pa. at 390, 292 A.2d at 290. The reason for this rule was forcefully stated by Mr. Chief Justice Gordon in Jacobs v. Commonwealth, 121 Pa. 586, 592-93, 15 A. 465 (1888):
“The questions thus proposed were properly rejected, because, had the required answers been received, the court could have done nothing else than instruct the jury to disregard them. They were intended, not to establish the fact that Jacobs, when he committed the homicide, was constrained by an insane impulse which for the time destroyed his free agency, but only to show that he was of an excitable • temperament; . But a rule which would allow the justification of crime on such pretext would utterly pervert and subvert the moral order of things. . . . The phlegmatic man may be moved to anger as well as the most nervous; the only difference is that it requires more to affect the one than the other; but when passion is once aroused in either, it is the same unreasoning and unreasonable power. Why, then, should it not excuse crime in the one as well as in the other? If the murder of the latter may thus be reduced in degree, why not that of the former? Questions, such as these, at once show the utter inapplicability of the rule contended for, hence it must be rejected. The main object of the Penal Code is to *517compel man to restrain their evil passions and desires, hence the want of such restraint is rather an aggravation of than an excuse for crime.”
See also Small v. Commonwealth, 91 Pa. 304 (1880). There was, then, no error in the refusal of the psychologist’s testimony.
471 Pa. at 383-85, 370 A.2d at 355-56.
The present case is similar to the Collins case decided just nine years ago. Commonwealth v. Collins, supra. There this Court unanimously held that there was insufficient objective evidence of provocation to raise the issue of voluntary manslaughter where the testimony indicated that the defendant was mad at his wife and suspected her of having an affair with another man. We then affirmed his conviction for murder of the first degree. I therefore believe that action of the majority today in abandoning the objective standard and replacing it with a subjective determination of provocation, is without legal or logical support.
Nor do I agree with the statement in the Opinion of the Court that evidence concerning intoxication and evidence concerning heat of passion are not mutually exclusive, The effect of a heat of passion defense is to admit that the killing was intentional but done under a sudden and intense provocation. An intoxication defense, on the other hand, is based upon the belief that the defendant’s drunkenness robbed him of the ability to form the required intent to commit first degree murder. Thus heat of passion has intent to kill as a constituent element whereas an intoxication defense requires the negation of that intent.
Although appellant’s trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to introduce psychiatric evidence for heat of passion purposes, I believe trial counsel was ineffective for failing to introduce this evidence to show a diminished capacity on the part of appellant. Appellant’s psychiatric problems when combined with his intoxication results in a reasonable and certainly arguable claim of diminished capacity. See, Commonwealth v. Walzack, 468 Pa. 210, 360 A.2d 914 (1976); Commonwealth v. Graves, 461 Pa. 118, 123, 334 A.2d 661 *518(1975). Thus-appellant would have stood a good chance of reducing the level of the homicide from first degree murder to third degree murder. I therefore agree that appellant is entitled to a new trial.