Court Opinion

ID: 9649078
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:41:40.193879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:07.528760
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CASTILLE
CONCURRING.
I join the Majority Opinion with the single exception of its characterization of Commonwealth v. Chambers, 528 Pa. 558, 599 A.2d 630 (1991) as adopting a per se rule that biblical references by a prosecutor are automatically reversible error. Majority slip op. at 7. I recognize that the Majority’s discussion of the scope of the Chambers rule arguably is dicta because the Court’s holding ultimately depends not on the scope of the prohibition but on the fact that the remarks in *313this case were made before Chambers was decided and, thus, counsel cannot be deemed ineffective for failing to anticipate the decision. Id. Nevertheless, I write separately because I do not believe that the Chambers prohibition is so broad or indiscriminate.
As this Court noted in Commonwealth v. Spotz, 562 Pa. 498, 756 A.2d 1139 (2000), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 932, 121 S.Ct. 1381, 149 L.Ed.2d 307 (2001):
[T]he impropriety that Chambers and [Commonwealth v. Brown, 551 Pa. 465, 711 A.2d 444 (1998)] sought to eradicate was the invocation of biblical or religious authority in support of a death penalty verdict. As we explained in Chambers: this argument [that the Bible supports the imposition of the death penalty] advocates to the jury that an independent source of law exists for the conclusion that the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for [a defendant].... If a penalty of death is meted out by a jury, it must be because the jury was satisfied that the substantive law of the Commonwealth requires its imposition, not because of some other source of law.
Id. at 1164-65 (emphasis original) (quoting Chambers, 599 A.2d at 644). Accord Commonwealth v. Brown, 567 Pa. 272, 786 A.2d 961, 964-65 (2001) (characterizing Chambers); Commonwealth v. Cook, 544 Pa. 361, 676 A.2d 639, 651 (1996) (biblical reference did not run afoul of per se Chambers rule because prosecutor “did not rely on the Bible to support the death penalty, but made reference to it only to refute appellant’s defense to the imposition of the death penalty based entirely on appellant’s alleged religious character and his alleged Biblical ties”) (alternative holding). Thus, it is settled that Chambers does not operate to bar “all biblical references,” innocuous or otherwise, but only “reliance upon the Bible as a source, independent of Pennsylvania law, for returning a verdict of death.” Spotz, 756 A.2d at 1165 n. 24.