Court Opinion

ID: 9629970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:54:45.652545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:31:06.812175
License: Public Domain

Fontron, J.,
dissenting: This dissent must necessarily be brief, for time is at a premium. My disagreement with the majority opinion stems from a conviction on my part that prejudicial error occurred in the admission of rebuttal evidence. I refer primarily to the testimony of Darlene Criss and two Philadelphia police officers, George Fencl and Joseph Casson.
Mrs. Criss testified that following the preliminary examination she heard one of the defendants, whom she could not identify, make this statement: “What that little Mex [Gutierrez] needs was to have his throat slit.” The majority of the court correctly concedes this testimony was inadmissible, but they shrug it off as “sheer after-the-fact hyperbole.”
I am far from certain what this high flown expression is intended to imply. However, I harbor no illusion that the state intended to favor the defendants by calling Mrs. Criss to the witness stand. Her testimony, in my judgment, clearly contains the poisonous seeds of prejudice.
Testimony given by the Philadelphia police officers was equally damaging to the accused, if not more so. The ostensible reason for the appearance of these witnesses at the trial was to rebut the testimony of defendants Johnson and Manning, who attended a Black Power Conference in Philadelphia, in which they had denied any knowledge of a Black Guard organization and indicated it was an invention of the prosecuting officers.
The examination of the officers ranged far and wide over a variety of topics. It delved into tibe makeup of the conference, who was there (although neither had seen the defendants), the number of arrests that were made, the pendency of criminal charges against one of the leaders, the number of street gangs that existed in Philadelphia and the relationship between the Black Guard and RAM (revolutionary action movement). The officers also identified Black Guard organization and training manuals which were thereupon admitted into evidence.
This evidence far exceeded the bounds of permissible rebuttal, going substantially beyond that required to rebut the statements of Johnson and Manning. Moreover, the testimony was not relevant in any respect to the other six defendants who were convicted.
*38In my opinion the evidence elicited under the guise of rebuttal testimony, as it related to the composition and activities of the Black Power Conference, as well as to the organizational makeup and program of the Black Guard, was wholly inadmissible and its reception constituted prejudicial error. The Black Guard was not on trial in this action, nor were the defendants on trial for being among its members. The intensive inquiry conducted by the state into matters concerning the Black Guard was entirely collateral to the main issue and was well calculated to divert attention from the sole question to be decided — the guilt or innocence of the defendants.
For the reasons expressed herein, it is my opinion the defendants did not receive a fair trial. I would reverse the judgment and remand this case with directions to grant a new trial.