Court Opinion

ID: 9893814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-30 17:09:24.513404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:01.190477
License: Public Domain

J-S38044-23

 NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  ANDY KUILAN                                  :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 914 EDA 2023

      Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered February 21, 2023
  In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
                      No(s): CP-51-CR-0006572-2021

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY PELLEGRINI, J.:                        FILED OCTOBER 30, 2023

       Andy Kuilan (Kuilan) appeals from the judgment of sentence imposed

by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (trial court) after his

bench trial convictions for third-degree murder, persons not to possess

firearms, firearms not to be carried without a license, carrying firearms in

Philadelphia, possession of an instrument of crime and recklessly endangering

another person.1 On appeal, he challenges the sufficiency and the weight of

the evidence. We affirm.

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 2502(c), 6105(a)(1), 6106(a)(1), 6108, 907(a) and 2705.
J-S38044-23

                                      I.

      The trial court summarized the evidence presented at Kuilan’s trial as

follows:

            On December 23, 2020, at approximately 8:20 a.m., Kuilan
      shot and killed the decedent, Masai Moore, on the 3100 block of
      “F” Street in Philadelphia. The entire incident was captured on
      surveillance video from multiple cameras located around the area
      of the shooting as well as near Kuilan’s residence at 5721
      Tackawanna Street, where he lived with his paramour, Natasha
      Quinones. Various surveillance videos captured Kuilan leaving his
      residence, parking a block-and-a-half away from the scene,
      walking over to the decedent, pulling out a gun, and shooting at
      him eight times before returning to his vehicle and driving back to
      his residence. N.T. 12/5/2022 at 195-204, 215; Comm. Ex. 38.

            At 7:45 a.m. that morning, Kuilan can be seen on
      surveillance video walking from the alleyway behind the 5700
      block of Tackawanna Street and entering a black 2010 Buick
      LaCrosse parked on Cheltenham Avenue. After driving away,
      Kuilan is later seen on video at 8:13 a.m. parking the Buick
      LaCrosse on “E” Street near the corner of E. Allegheny Avenue
      about a block-and-a-half from where the shooting occurred.
      Kuilan exited the vehicle dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt,
      black sweatpants, and black shoes with a black ski mask over his
      face. He walked south on “E” Street and turned left onto
      Allegheny Avenue. N.T. 12/5/2022 at 224-231.

             At approximately 8:20 a.m., Kuilan is seen on video turning
      onto “F” Street from Allegheny Avenue. Kuilan walked directly
      toward the decedent, who was standing on the corner of “F” and
      Wishart Streets, pulled a gun from his sweatshirt pocket, pointed
      it at the decedent, and fired eight shots. In doing so, Kuilan
      ignored three other people in that same area and deliberately
      targeted the decedent. After Kuilan fired the first few shots in
      quick succession, the decedent attempted to duck behind a car for
      cover then ran across “F” Street. Kuilan chased the decedent as
      he continued firing several more shots while the decedent ran
      toward Allegheny Avenue. After being shot twice, the decedent
      collapsed on Allegheny Avenue and subsequently died from the
      gunshot wound to his chest. N.T. 12/5/2022 at 20-22, 33-35,
      195-201, 232; Comm. Ex. 2, 38.

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           With the gun still in his hand, Kuilan ran down Wishart
     Street toward “E” Street. When Kuilan was next captured on video
     turning onto “E” Street, he was no longer running, but walking
     toward the area where he parked his vehicle. As he approached
     his vehicle after crossing Allegheny Avenue, Kuilan took off his ski
     mask and placed the gun, a Glock 19 9-millimeter semi-automatic
     with an extended magazine, in the wheel well of another vehicle
     parked on “E” Street. After he initially walked away, Kuilan
     stopped, turned around, and retrieved the firearm from the other
     vehicle’s wheel well before returning to the Buick Lacrosse and
     driving away. N.T. 12/5/2022 at 198-201, 233-236; Comm. Ex.
     38.

            At 9:40 a.m., Kuilan returned to Cheltenham Avenue, where
     he parked his vehicle in the same parking spot that he had left
     earlier. He then exited the vehicle and walked down the alleyway
     toward his residence at 5721 Tackawanna Street. N.T. 12/5/2022
     at 204, 237-39.

           As a result of an investigation of Kuilan by the Pennsylvania
     State Police that was ongoing at the time of the shooting, a GPS
     tracker had been placed on Kuilan’s vehicle on December 22,
     2020. The GPS tracker showed the Buick LaCrosse drive to and
     from the area of the shooting on December 23, 2020 and matched
     the movement of the vehicle captured on surveillance video. A
     day after the shooting occurred, the Buick LaCrosse was parked
     behind 5721 Tackawanna Street and remained there until Kuilan
     was arrested by the Pennsylvania State Police on February 12,
     2021. N.T. 12/5/2022 at 122, 167-70; Comm. Ex. 34.

            At the time of Kuilan’s arrest, a search warrant was
     executed on the Buick Lacrosse and a 9-millimeter Glock 19 semi-
     automatic handgun with an extended magazine was recovered
     from under the driver’s seat. That same day, Kuilan provided a
     statement to police in which he admitted that the Buick LaCrosse
     was his vehicle, even though it was registered to another
     individual, and that the Glock 19 belonged to him. N.T. 12/5/2022
     at 111-116; Comm. Ex. 29.

           Corporal Shadi Johnson of the Pennsylvania State Police,
     who saw Kuilan regularly in the six months prior to the incident
     while conducting an investigation of him, identified Kuilan as the

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       shooter upon viewing the surveillance video. N.T. 12/5/2022 at
       107-109.

              Eight 9-millimeter fired cartridge casings (“FCCs”) were
       recovered at the scene. All eight were located on the west side of
       “F” Street, where the Defendant was seen shooting on video. Each
       of the FCCs were fired from the Glock 19 found in Kuilan’s Buick
       LaCrosse. Kuilan’s DNA was found on the steering wheel and
       interior driver side door handle of the Buick Lacrosse. N.T.
       12/5/2022 at 54-56, 84-89, 244-46; Comm. Ex. 24 & 26.

Trial Court Opinion (TCO), 5/9/23, at 2-4 (cleaned up).

       At the end of the trial, the trial court found Kuilan guilty of the above

offenses and later sentenced him to an aggregate term of 26 to 52 years’

imprisonment.2 After the trial court denied his post-sentence motion, Kuilan

filed this appeal to assert that his third-degree murder conviction was against

the sufficiency and weight of the evidence.

                                               II.

                                               A.

       Kuilan first claims that the Commonwealth presented insufficient

evidence to convict him of third-degree murder.

       As a general matter, our standard of review of sufficiency claims
       requires that we evaluate the record in the light most favorable to
       the verdict winner giving the prosecution the benefit of all
       reasonable inferences to be drawn from the evidence. Evidence
       will be deemed sufficient to support the verdict when it establishes
       each material element of the crime charged and the commission
____________________________________________

2 The trial court imposed the maximum 20 to 40 years for third-degree
murder, a consecutive 5 to 10 years for persons not to possess firearms, and
a consecutive 1 to 2 years for recklessly endangering another person. The
court imposed no further penalty on the remaining convictions.

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      thereof by the accused, beyond a reasonable doubt.
      Nevertheless, the Commonwealth need not establish guilt to a
      mathematical certainty. Any doubt about the defendant’s guilt is
      to be resolved by the fact finder unless the evidence is so weak
      and inconclusive that, as a matter of law, no probability of fact
      can be drawn from the combined circumstances.

      The Commonwealth may sustain its burden by means of wholly
      circumstantial evidence. Accordingly, [t]he fact that the evidence
      establishing a defendant’s participation in a crime is circumstantial
      does not preclude a conviction where the evidence coupled with
      the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom overcomes the
      presumption of innocence. Significantly, we may not substitute
      our judgment for that of the fact finder; thus, so long as the
      evidence adduced, accepted in the light most favorable to the
      Commonwealth, demonstrates the respective elements of a
      defendant’s crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, the appellant’s
      convictions will be upheld.

Commonwealth v. Sebolka, 205 A.3d 329, 336–37 (Pa. Super. 2019).

      Third-degree murder is defined by the Crimes Code as “all other kinds

of murder” other than first-degree murder or second-degree murder.            18

Pa.C.S. § 2502(c).    While Section 2502(c) does not set forth the requisite

mens rea for third-degree murder, Section 302(c) of the Crimes Code

provides: “When the culpability sufficient to establish a material element of

an offense is not prescribed by law, such element is established if a person

acts intentionally, knowingly[,] or recklessly with respect thereto.” 18 Pa.C.S.

§ 302(c). “The elements of third-degree murder, as developed by case law,

are a killing done with legal malice.” Commonwealth v. Marquez, 980 A.2d

145, 148 (Pa. Super. 2009) (citation omitted). “Malice exists where there is

a particular ill-will, and also where ‘there is a wickedness of disposition,

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hardness of heart, wanton conduct, cruelty, recklessness of consequences[,]

and a mind regardless of social duty.’” Id. (citation omitted).

      Kuilan first argues that surveillance footage shown at trial was not

strong enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the shooter.

In support of this contention, Kuilan asserts that the shooter’s face and body

were covered for most of the incident, as the only time the shooter’s face is

seen in the footage is when he removes his mask to place the gun inside the

wheel well of a car.    According to Kuilan, this “grainy” footage was not

conclusive enough to establish his identity as the shooter.

      Kuilan’s first argument fails for two reasons. First, as Kuilan concedes

in his argument, the surveillance footage showed that the shooter removed

his mask after the shooting when he was hiding the gun. Upon viewing this

footage, Corporal Johnson of the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) was able to

identify Kuilan as the shooter in the video because Corporal Johnson had been

investigating and saw Kuilan regularly in the six months before the shooting.

See N.T., 12/5/2022, at 107-109. We have previously found it proper for a

witness to offer a lay opinion as to the identity of an individual in security

footage when the witness’s identification is rationally based upon his or her

own perception. See Commonwealth v. Palmer, 192 A.3d 85, 101 (Pa.

Super. 2018) (holding that the admission of a detective’s lay opinion

testimony identifying the appellant as the shooter in surveillance videos was

proper because it was based upon his perceptions and was helpful in allowing

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the factfinder to reach a clear understanding). Thus, the trial court was free

to credit Corporal Johnson’s testimony and conclude that Kuilan was the

shooter depicted in the surveillance footage.       See Commonwealth v.

Connelly, 2023 WL 5274028, unpublished memorandum, at *7-10 (Pa.

Super. filed August 16, 2023) (rejecting defendant’s claim that there was

insufficient evidence to identify him as the shooter where two police detectives

identifying him as the shooter in surveillance footage, as the factfinder was

free to credit their testimony without corroborating evidence of identity).3

       The second reason why Kuilan’s identification argument fails is that the

surveillance footage was not the Commonwealth’s only evidence in identifying

him as the shooter. Indeed, besides presenting testimony identifying Kuilan

as the shooter in the video, the Commonwealth presented evidence

connecting Kuilan to the Buick LaCrosse that the shooter drove to and from

the shooting. As the trial court noted, the PSP were investigating Kuilan before

the shooting and placed a GPS tracker on what they believed to be his car:

the Buick LaCrosse. On the day of the shooting, the tracker showed that the

Buick LaCrosse traveled to and from the area of the shooting, thus matching

the movement of the car shown in the surveillance footage.           The Buick

LaCrosse then remained parked behind where Kuilan lived until his arrest in

____________________________________________

3 Pursuant to the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure, we may cite non-

precedential memorandum decisions of this Court that were filed after May 1,
2019, for their “persuasive value.” Pa.R.A.P. 126(b)(1)-(2).

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February 2021. After his arrest, Kuilan admitted that the Buick LaCrosse was

his car even though he was not the registered owner, and that the Glock 19

that was found belonged to him and not his paramour. DNA testing was later

performed and confirmed not only that Kuilan’s DNA was found on the steering

wheel and interior driver side door handle of the Buick Lacrosse, but also that

the Glock 19 found inside the car fired the FCCs recovered at the shooting.

Thus, contrary to Kuilan’s suggestion that the Commonwealth relied solely on

the surveillance footage, the Commonwealth presented substantial evidence

establishing that Kuilan drove the Buick LaCrosse to the shooting and used

the Glock 19 to kill the victim.

      Kuilan next argues that the Commonwealth presented insufficient

evidence for the trial court to conclude that it was him and not someone else

who was driving the car and, therefore, had access to the gun. Besides being

better suited to the weight of the evidence, this speculative claim ignores that

Kuilan gave a statement after his arrest admitting that the Buick LaCrosse was

his car and that the Glock 19 found inside the car belonged to him. See N.T.

12/5/2022 at 111-116; Comm. Ex. 29. The trial court was free to credit his

statement and, after watching the surveillance footage showing the shooter

acted alone, conclude that Kuilan drove the Buick LaCrosse and shot the

victim.

      Finally, assuming he was the shooter, Kuilan argues that the

Commonwealth presented insufficient evidence that he acted with malice

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because the Commonwealth could not establish the distance from which the

shots were fired. We find this argument unavailing. Rather than show that

Kuilan fired randomly at a group of people from far away, the evidence showed

that Kuilan “walked directly toward the decedent, who was standing on the

corner of “F” and Wishart Streets, pulled a gun from his sweatshirt pocket,

pointed it at the decedent, and fired eight shots.” TCO at 2. Upon seeing the

decedent try to hide and run away, Kuilan chased after the decedent and

continued firing at him until he collapsed and died on the street after being

shot in the chest. Id. at 3. Under such circumstances, there was more than

enough evidence for the trial court to infer that Kuilan acted with the requisite

malice in killing the decedent and, therefore, convict him of third-degree

murder.   See Commonwealth v. Jones, 271 A.3d 452, 460 (Pa. Super.

2021) (sufficient evidence of malice where the defendant intentionally fired a

gun, in rapid fire succession, directly at the victim and did not stop shooting

as the victim fell to the floor); Commonwealth v. Patterson, 180 A.3d 1217,

1223 (Pa. Super. 2018) (malice established where defendant intentionally

pointed a revolver at victim and fired).

                                       B.

      Kuilan next argues that the trial court erred in not granting his post-

sentence motion for a new trial in which he argued that the trial court’s verdict

was against the weight of the evidence. In a one-paragraph argument, Kuilan

parrots the same arguments that he raised in his sufficiency claim, arguing

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that the security footage was too inconclusive to establish that he was the

shooter and, even if he was, that he acted with malice because he fired from

a far distance.

       A motion for a new trial based on a claim that the verdict is against
       the weight of the evidence is addressed to the discretion of the
       trial court. A new trial should not be granted because of a mere
       conflict in the testimony or because the judge on the same facts
       would have arrived at a different conclusion. Rather, the role of
       the trial judge is to determine that notwithstanding all the facts,
       certain facts are so clearly of greater weight that to ignore them
       or to give them equal weight with all the facts is to deny justice.

       An appellate court’s standard of review when presented with a
       weight of the evidence claim is distinct from the standard of review
       applied by the trial court. Appellate review of a weight claim is a
       review of the exercise of discretion, not of the underlying question
       of whether the verdict is against the weight of the evidence.

Commonwealth v. Arias, 286 A.3d 341, 352 (Pa. Super. 2022) (cleaned

up).   Accordingly, we must determine whether the trial court, in denying

Kuilan’s post-sentence motion, “abused its discretion by reaching a manifestly

unreasonable judgment, misapplying the law, or basing its decision on

partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will.” Commonwealth v. Clay, 64 A.3d 1049,

1056 (Pa. 2013) (cleaned up).

       After review, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s denial of

Kuilan’s challenge to the weight of the evidence. As the trial court succinctly

explained in its Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion, the evidence of Kuilan’s guilt in

committing third-degree murder was overwhelming, as the evidence

       established that Kuilan fired a gun at the decedent eight times,
       hitting him in the chest, and resulting in his death. The decedent
       was minding his own business when Kuilan approached and

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      opened fire without warning.        This Court, as fact-finder,
      determined that Kuilan was the shooter based on the surveillance
      video, the GPS tracker, the Defendant’s statement, and the gun
      found in the Defendant’s vehicle. The Glock 19 found in his vehicle
      matched the FCCs found at the scene. Kuilan’s DNA was also
      found on the Buick LaCrosse that the shooter drove both before
      and after the shooting.

TCO at 8 (cleaned up).

      We have little to add to this. As discussed in the sufficiency claim, the

Commonwealth’s case in identifying Kuilan as the shooter was based not only

on testimony identifying him as the shooter seen in the surveillance footage,

but also on the substantial evidence tying him to the Buick LaCrosse and Glock

19 that were used in the murder, including Kuilan’s own admissions the car

and gun belonged to him. Again, the trial court, sitting as the factfinder, was

free to credit this evidence and, along with viewing the surveillance footage

and crediting Corporal Johnson’s identification, conclude that Kuilan was the

shooter and that he killed the decedent with malice. Accordingly, we find no

merit in Kuilan’s weight-of-the-evidence claim.

      Judgment of sentence affirmed.

Date: 10/30/2023

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