Court Opinion

ID: 9644530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:58:52.311275+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:14.393631
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice,
concurring.
The evidence in this case, as later explained, does not establish appellant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. His judgment of sentence should be reversed and he should be discharged as to murder of the first degree. Since a majority of this Court does not agree, I join in that portion of Mr. Chief Justice Eagen’s opinion which remands this case for an evidentiary hearing.
However, the proper disposition would be to discharge appellant as to the charge of murder of the first degree. Even accepting that the standard to be applied is that the evidence must be read in the light most favorable to the *234prosecution, the evidence is insufficient in this case to support a verdict of murder in the first degree. There is no evidence that the homicide in this case was “willful, deliberate, and premeditated”. 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2502 (1973).
The evidence showed at trial that Michael Trunk, a member of the Pagan Motorcycle Club, along with another passenger travelling in a south bound lane, stopped for a red light at the intersection of Easton Road and Moreland Road. At the same time, twelve members of the Breed Motorcycle Club, a rival motorcycle club stopped for a red light travel-ling in a northerly direction on Easton Road. Members of the Breed Motorcyclists crossed over into the south bound lane. Michael Trunk then accelerated through the intersection and continued south. A single shot was fired from the midst of the pursuing cyclists which hit Michael Trunk and resulted in his death. From these facts and from other circumstantial evidence produced at the trial, the majority says “it is convinced” that the “quality and quantity” of the evidence is sufficient to find murder in the first degree. Apparently, the majority rested its conclusion not on the statute but from the intentional use of a deadly weapon on a vital part of the body.
The Court has said that:
“[t]he law requires, and the jury must find the actual intent, that is to say, the fully formed purpose to kill, with so much time for deliberation and premeditation as to convince the jury that this purpose was not the immediate offspring of rashness or impetuous temper, and that the mind has become fully conscious of its own design.” (Emphasis added.)
Commonwealth v. Bulted, 443 Pa. 422, 430, 279 A.2d 158, 162 (1971).
No evidence produced at trial indicated that the “single shot” which caused Michael Trunk’s death was anything other than an “immediate offspring of rashness or impetuous temper.” Furthermore, no evidence showed that at the time of the shooting, appellant’s “mind” was “fully conscious *235of its own design.” Therefore, the evidence was insufficient to support a verdict of murder in the first degree.
Additionally, no evidence at trial demonstrated that appellant was the one who fired the “single shot.” The majority says that we can infer from a conversation between appellant and another member of the Breed Motorcycle Club that appellant made an admission that he shot Michael Trunk. I cannot agree.
The following conversation took place between appellant and Rehm, another member of the club, speaking to each other from nearby cells:
Rehm: “Is that you Marlboro?”
Waldman: Yeah, that’s me. Is that you Little Buddy?”
Rehm: “Yeah, that’s me. You got yourself a dead eye.”
Waldman: “Yeah, you got it there, there’s nothing happening.” [Emphasis added]
First of all, the majority concedes that the term “dead eye” was not defined at trial. Maj. Opinion, pg. 1027. The only explanation of this term was offered by Francis Mar-key, a prosecution witness and friend of Michael Trunk, when he indicated during cross-examination that one could infer from the context of the conversation that the term “dead eye” referred to the shooting. This was an opinion based on speculation — not knowledge of the meaning of the term as used in the colloquy. However, no other evidence was introduced at trial on this point.
Secondly, the response appellant made, “Yeah, you got it there, there’s nothing happening,” to the comment, “You got yourself a dead eye,” does not support an inference that he was admitting that he shot Michael Trunk or that the shooting was the product of some “willful, deliberated, and premeditated” act of appellant. To infer that appellant was admitting to the shooting is total speculation and is not supported by the evidence.
The trial judge recognized the weakness of the prosecution’s case when the judge commented:
*236“I must say, I think that this case is razor thin, and comes about as close as I could conceivably imagine one coming to a demurrer, but I think that if all the inferences to which [the prosecutor] has alluded in his argument or in all the evidence [sic], is looked upon in a light most favorable to the Commonwealth that the jury could find the defendant, more accurately that the facts have been made out to sustain the charges against the defendant. It is very close. I think that if no more evidence were offered, and if the defendant closed his case and if the case went to the jury and the defendant were convicted and I were faced with a post trial motion and arrest [sic], I would be looking at the same standard that I am looking at now. When one asks oneself whether or not he would want to be convicted on evidence of this quality, you get some tremors in your stomach. It’s awfully close. It’s not beyond the realm of reason that I will alter my opinion before this case goes before the jury, but my present thinking is that there is probably just barely enough to submit to the jury or in any event, to permit the case to go on.
I will say to you, [the prosecutor], that I think you are skating on about as thin ice as I have ever seen in the prosecution of a case. I still have some alternatives open to me and I will continue to consider them and we will make some hard judgments on it when we get a little further on.”
These doubts that the trial judge had are now removed by the majority’s decision today which finds the evidence sufficient without any evidence of a “willful, deliberate, and premeditated” killing. Because the evidence is insufficient to support a verdict of murder in the first degree, appellant is entitled to be discharged, as to the charge of murder of the first degree.