Court Opinion

ID: 9714664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:42:29.961058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:27.540970
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the majority that the trial court erred when it arrested judgment on a verdict of first degree felony robbery1 and “substituted” a verdict of guilty of third degree felony robbery.2 The evidence was clearly sufficient to sustain the original verdict of the trial judge, and he could not, in response to a motion in arrest of judgment, reevaluate the weight and credibility of the evidence to reach a different result.
The effect of a motion in arrest of judgment is to admit all facts which the Commonwealth’s evidence tends to prove. Commonwealth v. Davis, 477 Pa. 197, 199, 383 A.2d 891, 892 (1978). In determining whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict, the evidence must be read in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, which is entitled to all reasonable inferences arising therefrom. Commonwealth v. Rawles, 501 Pa. 514, 520, 462 A.2d 619, 622 (1983); Commonwealth v. Davis, supra.
In the instant case, the evidence showed that during the early morning hours of November 3, 1983, Officer Edward Cottrell, a member of the Philadelphia Police Department’s “grandpop” squad, entered a subway station in Center City. He was followed by Eric Gaither, who is the appellee, and by an accomplice. Gaither demanded that Cottrell “Give me your f-— money.” When Cottrell said, “No,” Gaither told his accomplice to “shoot him.” Cottrell, at this time, observed the butt end of a revolver in the belt of the accomplice. Gaither grabbed Cottrell by his jacket lapels, slammed him against the wall of the subway station, and removed from his person a roll of marked bills. Gaither and his accomplice were apprehended as they fled up the *507subway stairs by a back-up team of police officers. The marked money was recovered from Gaither, and a .22 caliber blank gun, loaded with live rounds, was removed from the accomplice.
This evidence was sufficient to establish that Gaither was guilty of robbery in violation of 18 Pa.C.S. § 3701(a)(1), which provides as follows:
A person is guilty of robbery if, in the course of committing theft, he
(ii) threatens another with or intentionally puts him in fear of immediate serious bodily injury.
This was a felony of the first degree. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3701(b). See: Commonwealth v. Hurd, 268 Pa.Super. 24, 407 A.2d 418 (1979).
The trial court found Gaither guilty of robbery, a felony of the first degree, but later, in response to a motion in arrest of judgment, reduced the crime to a felony of the third degree3 because of “an inherent equitable power to amend its own judgment.” The equitable consideration which moved the trial court to amend its verdict was the fact that the accomplice had been found guilty of robbery, a felony of the third degree.
To substitute a finding that Gaither was guilty only of robbery, a felony of the third degree, as the majority correctly holds, was improper. The trial judge had no greater authority to amend the nonjury verdict than he would have had to amend a jury verdict. Commonwealth v. Meadows, 471 Pa. 201, 205 n. 5, 369 A.2d 1266, 1268 n. 5 (1977); Commonwealth v. Parker, 305 Pa.Super. 516, 523, 451 A.2d 767, 770 (1982). As Judge Spaeth observed in a concurring opinion in Commonwealth v. Nelson, 245 Pa.Super. 33, 38-39, 369 A.2d 279, 282 (1976)4
*508Anyone who has been a trial judge will recognize what happened here. The judge had a difficult decision to make. He made it — he found appellant guilty — but then he started to worry that perhaps he had made a mistake. We have all experienced such worry. It can be very painful. It does not, however, justify a change of mind. Had the judge been sitting with a jury, and had one of the jurors come to him after the trial and expressed the wish to change his verdict, the judge would have told him that he could not. Here, the judge was the jury. He should have said to himself what he would have said to the juror.
For the foregoing reasons, I agree that the trial court’s order arresting judgment and substituting a lesser verdict was erroneous and must be reversed. I also agree that a remand is necessary to permit the trial court to consider and decide appellee’s undetermined motion for new trial.

. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3701(a)(1)(H) & (b).

. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3701(a)(l)(v) & (b).

. Robbery is a felony of the third degree if a person "physically takes or removes property from the person of another by force however slight.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 3701(a)(l)(v) & (b).

. Aff’d in part at 476 Pa. 269, 382 A.2d 715 (1977).