Court Opinion

ID: 9408767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-13 16:09:09.503296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:46.544350
License: Public Domain

J-S21038-23

    NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA               :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
    QUARTEZ DESHAWN HARDY                      :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 1503 MDA 2022

          Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered July 26, 2022
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County Criminal Division at
                        No(s): CP-21-CR-0001679-2019

BEFORE: BOWES, J., NICHOLS, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY PELLEGRINI, J.:                             FILED JULY 13, 2023

        Quartez Deshawn Hardy (Hardy) was charged in 2019 with several

offenses allegedly committed in Dauphin and Cumberland Counties. Following

a jury trial held in the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County (trial

court), Hardy was found guilty of four counts – aggravated indecent assault

(18 Pa.C.S. § 3125(a)(2)), false imprisonment (18 Pa.C.S. § 2903(a)), simple

assault (18 Pa.C.S. § 2701(a)(1)), and harassment (18 Pa.C.S. § 2709(a)(4)).

He was sentenced to an aggregate prison term of 5.5 to 12 years and ordered

to register for life as a Tier III sexual offender under the SORNA Act.1 Hardy

____________________________________________

*   Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 The Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) requires
sexual offenders to register with the Pennsylvania State Police. See 42
Pa.C.S. §§ 9799.14(d)(4), 9799.15(a)(3), 9799.23.
J-S21038-23

now contends that the evidence was insufficient as to both assault counts, and

that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of his criminal conduct in

Dauphin County. We affirm.

                                       I.

      On the Friday evening in question, the victim in this case, Megan Bull

(Bull), drove Hardy to a Dauphin County bar where he had worked as a

bouncer. Bull left the bar after dropping off Hardy, but she returned later that

night to pick him up at the end of his shift.

      When Bull came back to the bar, she exchanged text messages with

Hardy in which he expressed annoyance that she had departed after dropping

him off.   The two had been romantically involved, and Hardy was upset

because he had told his co-workers that he would be introducing them to “his

girl.” Trial Transcript, 3/28/2022, at p. 71.

      Hardy then came out of the bar and acted aggressively toward Bull and

other individuals who were socializing outside. Initially, Hardy walked away

from Bull and she lost sight of him. However, a few minutes later, while Bull

was speaking to a friend, Hardy grabbed Bull from behind, clutching her arm

and her hair. He then pulled her to the vehicle she had driven to the bar and

forcefully took the keys from her hand. He also took her cellular phone.

      Bull testified that once they were both seated in the vehicle, Hardy

slapped her in the face and called her degrading names. He also warned Bull

that he would kill her if she continued “to play with him.”     Id. at p. 110.

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Hardy drove the two of them to his apartment in Cumberland County. Bull

had lived in an apartment just across the street.

      When the two arrived at Hardy’s apartment, he refused to give Bull her

keys and phone. She reluctantly went into his apartment so that she could

get those items back. However, once she entered, Hardy did not permit her

to leave, physically blocking her from the front door and verbally refusing her

requests to go home. The door was bolted shut and Hardy became irate when

he saw that Bull was receiving a call from a friend.

      Hardy began accusing Bull of having sexual relations with other men,

and he touched her vagina with his fingers, ostensibly to confirm his

suspicions. Moments later, Hardy appeared to grow remorseful, brandishing

a kitchen knife, crying, and stating that he needed psychological treatment

for a behavioral disorder.

      Bull continued asking for her keys and phone so that she could go home,

but Hardy ignored her requests and instead pulled her to the floor, where they

engaged in sexual intercourse.      Hardy continued to detain Bull in the

apartment and she did not leave until several hours later, by which time Hardy

had fallen asleep.

      Bull contacted her brother to tell him what had happened and he, in

turn, called the police. It appeared to Bull’s brother that she had been crying

and that her cheeks were red, but he did not immediately observe any bruises

or signs of injury. The police arranged to speak with Bull in a school parking

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lot and she went with her brother’s wife.        Her initial statement to the

investigating officer included no mention of a rape or a sexual assault.

      About three hours after giving her first statement, Bull contacted the

police again so that she could speak to an officer alone in the interview room

of the police station.   At this second interview, Bull, for the first time,

recounted her allegations that Hardy had digitally penetrated her vagina and

then raped her. Photos of Bull taken on that same day showed that she had

a swollen face, deep bruises on her arms, a ripped fingernail and a torn dress.

      The Commonwealth charged Hardy in Cumberland County with

aggravated indecent assault, terroristic threats, false imprisonment, simple

assault, harassment, rape and sexual assault.       Bull, her brother and the

investigating officer later testified at a jury trial held in 2022. According to

Bull and her brother, she was assaulted by Hardy, driven to Hardy’s apartment

without her consent, and then forced into having sexual contact with him,

including digital and penile penetration of her vagina.

      During Bull’s testimony, defense counsel objected to the admission at

trial of any evidence concerning Hardy’s conduct in Dauphin County (i.e.,

slapping Bull in the face and grabbing her hair) on the ground that the

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proceedings only concerned events transpiring in Cumberland County. The

objection was overruled. See Trial Transcript, 3/28/2022, at pp. 74-75.2

       As discussed above, the jury found Hardy guilty of aggravated indecent

assault, false imprisonment, simple assault and harassment.              He was

acquitted of the remaining counts of terroristic threats, rape and sexual

assault. As to the aggravated indecent assault count, Hardy was sentenced

to a prison term of 5 to 10 years; as to the false imprisonment count, he was

sentenced to a concurrent term of 9 months to 2 years; as to the simple

assault count, he was sentenced to a consecutive term of 6 months to 2 years;

and as to the harassment count, no term of incarceration was imposed.

       Hardy filed post-sentence motions which were all denied. He then timely

appealed, and the trial court entered a 1925(a) opinion giving its reasons why

the judgment of sentence should be affirmed.           See Trial Court 1925(a)

Opinion, 1/9/2023, at 14-17.

       In his brief, Hardy’s first claim is that the evidence adduced at trial was

insufficient to sustain his conviction on the count of aggravated indecent

assault.    He also contends in his second claim that the evidence was

insufficient as to the simple assault conviction. In his final claim, Hardy argues

____________________________________________

2 Similarly, defense counsel unsuccessfully sought to have the jury instructed
that it could not consider any evidence pertaining to Hardy’s actions in
Dauphin County. The trial court denied that request on the ground that all
the charged offenses, as alleged, were part of one continuous criminal
episode. See Trial Transcript, 3/29/2022, at p. 8.

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that the evidence of his alleged conduct in Dauphin County should not have

been presented to the jury because the trial’s scope should have been limited

to his conduct in Cumberland County.

                                       II.

      We first consider Hardy’s challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence

as to the aggravated indecent assault and simple assault convictions.

      The evidence presented at trial may sustain a conviction if it is sufficient

to prove every element of a given offense beyond a reasonable doubt. See

Commonwealth v. Bragg, 133 A.3d 328, 330-31 (Pa. Super. 2016) (citation

omitted). This Court must consider the evidence in the light most favorable

to the verdict winner (here, the Commonwealth). See id.

      In reviewing the evidence, this Court may not substitute its judgment

for that of the fact-finder, whose role it is to weigh the credibility of witnesses

and accept or reject “all, part[,] or none of the evidence.” Id. Inconsistencies

in the testimony of a witness generally do not implicate the sufficiency of the

evidence.    See id.      Furthermore, specifically, as to sexual offenses,

Pennsylvania law permits a jury to find a defendant guilty based on a victim’s

uncorroborated testimony.      See 18 Pa.C.S. § 3106 (“The testimony of a

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complainant need not be corroborated in prosecutions under this [Sexual

Offenses chapter of the Crimes Code]”).3

       Aggravated indecent assault occurs when “a person who engages in

penetration, however slight, of the genitals . . . of a complainant with a part

of the person’s body for any purpose other than good faith, medical, hygienic

or law enforcement procedures commits aggravated indecent assault if . . .

the person does so by forcible compulsion[.]” 18 Pa.C.S. § 3125(a)(2).

       Simple assault is defined as an attempt “to cause . . . bodily injury to

another[.]” 18 Pa.C.S. § 2701(a)(1). In this context, “bodily injury” means

“[i]mpairment of physical condition or substantial pain.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 2301.

       The evidence adduced at trial in this case was sufficient to sustain the

convictions as to both assault counts.           Bull testified that Hardy digitally

penetrated her vagina without her consent. Although Bull waited until her

second police interview to report this allegation of aggravated indecent

assault, the delay alone did not, as Hardy suggests, undermine the evidence

to the extent that it would preclude the jury from finding Hardy guilty of that

crime.

       The discrepancy between Bull’s first and second police interviews

created an issue of credibility. It is well established that this Court may not

____________________________________________

3 Legal sufficiency of the evidence is a pure issue of law subject to a de novo
standard of review. See Commonwealth v. Mikitiuk, 213 A.3d 290, 300
(Pa. Super. 2019).

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substitute its own credibility assessment for that of the jury, and as the finder-

of-fact, the jury was free to accept or reject any portion of Hardy’s testimony.

See Bragg, 133 A.3d at 330-31; see also 18 Pa.C.S. § 3106. Moreover, Bull

gave plausible reasons for omitting part of her account in her first police

interview, making it even more evident that this issue was for the jury to

decide and not a matter that would implicate the legal sufficiency of the

evidence.

      Hardy’s sufficiency claim regarding his simple assault conviction also

lacks merit.   At trial, the Commonwealth corroborated Bull’s testimony by

introducing photos of her swollen face, bruises on her arms, a torn dress and

a ripped fingernail. While Hardy argues in his brief that Bull’s brother saw no

signs of bruising on the day of the incident, which is arguably inconsistent with

Bull’s account, the issue is again a matter of credibility and weight of the

evidence, which is for the jury to determine.

      Here, the jury observed photographs of Bull’s injuries and heard her

testify as to what caused them. The verdict on the count of simple assault

reflects that the jury believed at least part of Bull’s explanation about how her

injuries occurred, and we see no reason to disturb that finding of fact on

appeal.

                                      III.

      Hardy’s last claim is that the jury should have been precluded from

hearing evidence concerning the alleged simple assault in Dauphin County.

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Although the claim is mostly framed as an evidentiary issue in his brief,

Hardy’s central point really seems to be that Cumberland County was an

improper venue for the simple assault count.         Regardless, this claim lacks

merit.

         A criminal defendant generally must stand trial in the county where the

alleged crime occurred.      See Commonwealth v. Callen, 198 A.3d 1149,

1158 (Pa. Super. 2018). However, where multiple offenses are part of a single

criminal episode that spans two counties, venue is proper in the court of either

county as to all the related charges. See Pa. R. Crim. P. 130(A)(3) (“When

charges arising from the same criminal episode occur in more than one judicial

district, the criminal proceeding on all the charges may be brought before one

issuing authority in a magisterial district within any of the judicial districts in

which the charges arising from the same criminal episode occurred.”); see

also 18 Pa.C.S. § 110(1)(ii) (codifying Pennsylvania’s compulsory joinder

rule).

         Multiple crimes are committed in a single criminal episode if the offenses

“are logically or temporally related and share common issues of law and

fact[.]” Commonwealth v. Witmayer, 144 A.3d 939, 946-47 (Pa. Super.

2016). “The temporal relationship between criminal acts will be a factor which

frequently determines whether the acts are ‘logically related’ to one

another[.]” Id. “When we ascertain whether a number of statutory offenses

are ‘logically related’ to one another, the court should initially inquire as to

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whether there is a substantial duplication of factual, and/or legal issues

presented by the offenses.” Id.

      A trial court’s authority to entertain charges committed in another

county is an issue of venue, and the Commonwealth bears the burden of

proving that venue is proper by a preponderance of the evidence.           See

Commonwealth v. Gross, 101 A.3d 28, 33 (Pa. 2014). “The single criminal

episode analysis essentially considers the totality of the circumstances.”

Schmidt, 919 A.2d at 246.

      In this case, the evidence established that the offenses in each county

were temporally and logically connected to the extent that they were part of

one continuous criminal episode.      As alleged and proven at trial, Hardy

assaulted Bull outside of a bar in Dauphin County and then forced her into the

vehicle used to transport them to Cumberland County, where Bull was again

assaulted while locked in Hardy’s apartment. There was no temporal break in

the sequence of events beginning with (a) the initial assault and false

imprisonment, and (b) the offenses which later took place hours later in

Cumberland County.

      Moreover, the issue of Bull’s credibility was crucial to the jury’s

determination as to all charges. The Commonwealth relied on the word of this

witness to establish her lack of consent to sexual touching, her lack of consent

to be transported from the bar to Hardy’s apartment, and the cause of her

injuries. This resulted in a substantial duplication of factual and legal issues

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presented by the offenses.         Thus, the trial court did not err in ruling that

Cumberland County was a proper venue to adjudicate the alleged offenses

occurring in Dauphin County.4

       Judgment of sentence affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 07/13/2023

____________________________________________

4 Hardy suggests in his brief that the Commonwealth failed to follow the
process outlined in Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 555 for
transferring a case from one county to another, precluding the trial court from
adjudicating charges relating to offenses committed in Dauphin County.
However, the subject charges were all filed in Cumberland County at the
outset of the case, so there was never a case in Dauphin County to transfer,
making Rule 555 inapposite. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 555(A).

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