Court Opinion

ID: 9697032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:04:16.397938+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:28.657384
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I dissent to the vacation of appellant’s judgment of sentence of death and imposition of a life sentence; I join that portion of the majority opinion affirming appellant’s convictions.
By anybody’s definition, appellant tortured his victim, and committed the offense of murder of the first degree by means of torture. As Justice Papadakos observes, we gave body to the meaning of the word “torture”, and approved the trial court’s elaboration of that term, in Commonwealth v. Pursell, 508 Pa. 212, 495 A.2d 183 (1985), wherein we held that what is intended to be included are those murders of the first degree where the actual commission of the offense included such concurrent heinous, atrocious or especially cruel acts as to set the murder apart from those murders of the first degree not attended by aggravating circumstances, i.e., the “conscienceless or pitiless crime” which causes inordinate or extreme pain and suffering, from which the intent to cause such pain and suffering can be presumed. Id., 508 Pa. at 239, 495 A.2d at 197.
While I believe it would be preferable to charge the jury more fully regarding the aggravating circumstance of “committed by means of torture” along the lines adopted and approved in Pursell, I do not believe that the failure of the trial court to give the more comprehensive instruction is an absolute necessity in all cases, nor do I believe that the minimal instruction on “torture” in the instant case requires that we vacate the sentence of death.
*282Our standard of review of a sentence of death is established by the Sentencing Code which provides that we shall affirm the sentence of death (assuming the absence of trial errors) unless we determine that:
(i) the sentence of death was the product of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor;
(ii) the evidence fails to support the finding of an aggravating circumstance specified in subsection (d); or
(iii) the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the circumstances of the crime and the character and record of the defendant.
42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9711(h) (emphasis added).
I do not find that the sentence of death was the product of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor, and it is not excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases involving torture of the victim. The record also discloses sufficient evidence to support the finding of an aggravating circumstance specified in subsection (d), namely subsection (d)(8) as that subsection has been interpreted by this Court in Pursell. As Justice Papadakos states, “Appellant inflicted a considerable amount of pain and suffering on his victim,” by acts that were especially “heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity, and the acts themselves prove that Appellant intended to torture his victim to death.” Concurring and Dissenting op. at 286. Accordingly, we are directed by statute to affirm the sentence of death in this case.
Perhaps in the abstract, or in another case, the evidence would not support the aggravating circumstance of “torture” where the trial court gave no elaboration on the meaning of that term to the jury and the jury was permitted to find such aggravating circumstance on sparse or speculative evidence of “torture.” This is not such a case, however. It is a case where the jury could have, and did, apply its common understanding of the word “torture” to the heinous facts before it to arrive at a fully supported *283determination that the offense had been committed by means of torture.
As the United States Supreme Court has stated in a related context, it “is neither possible nor desirable for a person to whom the state entrusts an important judgment to decide in a vacuum, as if he had no experiences.” Barclay v. Florida, 463 U.S. 939, 950, 103 S.Ct. 3418, 3425, 77 L.Ed.2d 1134 (1983). If a court failed to instruct a jury on the legal meaning of negligence in a civil case, and the jury found a defendant negligent who had driven his car at 100 m.p.h. through a crowded pedestrian crossing against a red light, I do not believe we would require a new trial simply because the jury instruction regarding “negligence” was at its “bare bones minimum.” We could legitimately review the record and find any inadequacy in the instruction to be harmless. So too in the instant case, where the jury correctly applied its common understanding of the word “torture” and found the existence of that aggravating circumstance (§ 9711(d)(8)), and where the record demonstrates sufficient evidence to support that aggravating circumstance as interpreted in Pursell.
Alternatively, as I must be bound by the majority’s position regarding the adequacy of the court’s instruction on the aggravating circumstance, I would not remand for imposition of a life sentence. Rather, I would vacate the sentence of death and remand for a new sentencing proceeding, for the reasons set forth in my concurring and dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Williams, 514 Pa. 62, 522 A.2d 1058 (1987).