Court Opinion

ID: 9704844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:48:08.32156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:05.813626
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion. However, I believe Mr. Justice Papadakos’s dissenting opinion deserves comment. I agree with him that Section 9711 of the Sentencing Code, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711, does not establish a per se rule requiring this Court to set aside a death penalty where any one aggravating circumstance found by the jury is not supported by the evidence, and there are other mitigating circumstances. If it is clear that the error committed by the jury was harmless, as might occur if the jury states both the aggravating and mitigating circumstances that it found, then I believe we can sustain the death penalty.
*96I do not believe that the majority opinion is inconsistent with my position. In this case the error cannot be found to be harmless in the face of the mitigating circumstances of defendant’s age of fifteen when he committed the crimes, and the presence of a single proper aggravating circumstance as found by the jury. See Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982); Commonwealth v. Holcomb, 508 Pa. 425, 498 A.2d 833 (1985) (Hutchinson, J., Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court).