Court Opinion

ID: 9636491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:31:03.36816+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:46.417009
License: Public Domain

CASTILLE, Justice,

dissenting.

This automatic appeal represents another instance in which a death penalty will be reversed due to harmless error. After finding the Commonwealth’s first aggravating circumstance, the jury’s foreperson wrote on the sentencing verdict slip that the killing was committed while in the perpetration of a rape. However, the record reveals that the trial court specifically instructed the jury that the felony asserted by the Commonwealth was attempted rape:
THE COURT: In this case under the Sentencing Code only the following matters if proven to your satisfaction beyond a reasonable doubt can be aggravating circumstances. First, that the [appellant] committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony. The felony here contended by the Commonwealth is that of attempted rape. For purposes of this case, ladies and gentlemen, the crime of attempted rape includes that the [appellant] attempted that offense, that he did a certain act that would be in pursuance of the further-*257anee of that rape, that he intended to commit a rape upon Kathy Fair, and that the act that he did constituted a substantial step toward the commission of that crime. In other words, attempted rape would include that the [appellant] attempted to engage in sexual intercourse with Kathy Fair that Kathy Fair was not his spouse, they weren’t married at the time, and that he did that through the use of forcible compulsion or threat of forcible compulsion that would prevent resistance by someone who has reasonable resolution. Now, if you are satisfied that those elements have been made out for you as I have described them for you for the charge of attempted rape, you may then consider the aggravating circumstance that the [appellant] committed this killing while in the perpetration of a felony.
N.T.- at 1,132-1,133 (emphasis added).
It is well settled that there is a presumption in the law that the jury followed the court’s instructions, thus, this is an instance of inadvertent error, nothing more, nothing less. Commonwealth v. Tilley, 528 Pa. 125, 142, 595 A.2d 575, 583 (1991). As the trial court below concluded because of the passage of years before the body was discovered, the jury had no sufficient evidence upon which to determine that there was a reasonable basis for concluding that appellant raped the victim before killing her. However, there was sufficient evidence to prove that appellant attempted to rape her.
Moreover, the majority’s reliance on Commonwealth v. Bil-la, 521 Pa. 168, 555 A.2d 835 (1989), is misplaced. In Billa, the trial court allowed the Commonwealth to demonstrate that the killing was committed during the perpetration of a rape. However, despite the prosecutions suggestion to do so, the trial court simply refused to instruct the jury as to the elements of rape. This Court held that it was erroneous to allow the jury to “speculate” on the elements of that crime and that the trial court must define the elements of the felony that the prosecution seeks to use for sentencing. Id. 521 Pa. at 187, 555 A.2d at 845. Applying this holding to the case sub judice, the majority concludes that the sentence of death should be reversed because the jury was not instructed as to *258the elements of rape. This simply was not the case. The crime of attempted rape is a lesser included offense of the crime of rape. As the preceding charge demonstrates, the trial court necessarily had to charge the jury with the elements of rape when it instructed them as to the elements of attempted rape. Thus, unlike Billa, this Court is not confronted with a situation where we are forced to speculate as to the jury’s intention. The jury was charged with the elements of the felony in question and based upon the evidence presented by the Commonwealth the jury determined that appellant committed a killing while in the perpetration of that felony, attempted rape. The layperson’s unintended mistake in omitting “attempted” before “rape” from the verdict slip should be read for what it is worth, harmless error. Accordingly, I would affirm the sentence of death.