Court Opinion

ID: 9692168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:45:00.627527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:32.271231
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION

Justice SAYLOR.
I respectfully dissent and write to the following points.
First, I have difficulty with majority’s discussion of the district attorney’s reference to sodium amitol or “truth serum” in his cross-examination of Appellant’s expert psychologist. See Majority Opinion, op. at 545-47. Narcoanalysis has not been recognized by this Court as a reliable scientific methodology particularly as concerns the process of truth determining, and notably, many other jurisdictions exclude evidence adduced thereby as unreliable. Cf. 23 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 971 (2004) (observing that, “[generally, the defendant’s statements made while under the influence of a truth serum are not admissible in evidence in a criminal trial”).1 Particu*147larly given the fairly strong connotations, and potential misconceptions, associated with a suggestion that there may be an actual, available “truth serum,” I would specifically disapprove casual references to a defendant’s (or his expert’s) failure to utilize such a device as a cross-examination tactic.2
Concerning Appellant’s claim related to the district attorney’s characterization of various of his statements as lies, see Majority Opinion, op. at 546-49, I believe that it should be acknowledged that the Court over time has gradually relaxed the governing review standard. In Commonwealth v. Potter, 445 Pa. 284, 285 A.2d 492 (1971), the Court issued a strong pronouncement condemning a prosecutor’s characterization of a defendant’s testimony as a malicious lie. The Court held that the reference constituted an impermissible personal opinion in violation of standards promulgated by the American Bar Association, and that the effect was highly prejudicial and warranted a mistrial. See id. at 286-87, 285 A.2d at 493. It is difficult to read Potter as other than announcing a per se rule proscribing branding the defendant a liar, or his statements as lies. In Commonwealth v. Floyd, 506 Pa. 85, 484 A.2d 365 (1984), however, the Court found a district attorney’s statement that a defendant “out and out lied” to the jury did not constitute actionable prosecutorial misconduct, because it represented a “fair inference from irrefutable evidence.” See id. at 93-94, 484 A.2d at 369. Then in Commonwealth v. Ragan, *148538 Pa. 2, 645 A.2d 811 (1994), the Court appears to have substituted a lesser requirement of a “fair inference based on the evidence,” see id. at 38-39, 645 A.2d at 829, for the former one of “fair inference from irrefutable evidence.” This, of course, seems to permit (or at least allow without consequence) commentary on lying in any case in which the defendant testifies or has given a statement tending to shift or lessen his blameworthiness (because in such cases there will always be evidence to the contrary, or the Commonwealth’s case would not have survived a probable cause hearing or motion for a directed verdict). Here, in addition to following Ragan’s revised standard, the majority also expressly invokes the general standard for assessing prosecutorial misconduct. See Majority Opinion, op. at 547. Therefore, although the Court has never expressly said so, it would appear that there is nothing left of Potter’s per se rule.
While I tend to agree with the majority that a per se approach is not the best one, the concerns that motivated the Potter Court are not without foundation. In this regard, I agree with the sentiments of the Delaware Supreme Court as follows:
In our opinion, “liar” is an epithet to be used sparingly in argument to the jury. It is a dashboard more likely to create heat in a contentious courtroom than it is to illuminate the search for the truth. But, more particularly, the .prosecutor who labels testimony as a he runs the risk of passing from a legitimate inference drawn from the evidence ... to the expression of an impermissible personal opinion.
Hughes v. State, 437 A.2d 559, 571 (Del.1981).
In this case, I would hold that the district attorney’s remarks exceeded the range of permissible conduct. In the first instance, I recognize that his challenge to Appellant’s truthfulness was warranted, particularly in light of the inconsistencies in Appellant’s statements, and as Appellant’s counsel in his summation had attempted to mitigate the damage from Appellant’s incriminatory statements by accusing the police of overreaching by scripting the worst of those statements. See *149N.T., May 15,1987, at 1886, 1895-97 (trial counsel summation). The district attorney’s response, however, was unduly inflammatory—not only did the district attorney expressly and repetitively indicate that Appellant’s statements were lies, he also attempted to personalize the matter vis-a-vis the jury panel. See, e.g., N.T., May 15, 1987, at 1957 (district attorney summation) (commenting that “you realize that [Appellant is] no fool but he thinks you are.”). This sort of commentary transgresses outside the realm of fair argumentation based on the evidence.
On the above issues, I might be able to find an absence of sufficient prejudice to require a new trial on derivative claims raised in the post-conviction setting. However, I also find merit in Appellant’s claim that the trial court’s instructions as to vicarious criminal liability violated the dictates of Commonwealth v. Huffman, 536 Pa. 196, 638 A.2d 961 (1994), and his counsel were ineffective for failing to raise and preserve the resultant, prejudicial error. In this case, the trial court gave a first-degree murder instruction substantially identical to that which the Huffman Court characterized as a patently erroneous statement of the law resulting in a miscarriage of justice. Compare Majority Opinion, op. at 550 (quoting N.T., May 19, 1987, at 2145), with Huffman, 536 Pa. at 198-99, 638 A.2d at 962.
The majority indicates that two other portions of the charge cure the Huffman defect. The first portion of the instructions cited by the majority merely defines the circumstances under which a defendant may be deemed to be an accomplice. See Majority Opinion, op. at 550-51 (quoting N.T., May 18, 1987, at 2108-09). It does not, however, address the subject of Huffman, namely, the expanded scope of vicarious criminal liability for other offenses that may ensue once a defendant is found to be an accomplice and/or coconspirator. See Huffman, 536 Pa. at 198-201, 638 A.2d at 962-63. The trial court discussed this central issue of scope in separate passages of its instructions in ordinary terms (and not on the special terms required by Huffman in first-degree murder cases), including the passage complained of by Appellant. See also N.T., May *15018, 1987, at 2103 (“What’s the coconspirator rule? When two or more persons conspire or combine with one another to commit an unlawful act, each is criminally responsible for the acts of his associates or his coconspirators committed in furtherance of their common design. In contemplation of the law, the act of one is the act of all.”); id. at 2112 (“Each accomplice is equally accountable for all acts committed pursuant to the original common criminal purpose or design, even if the specific act was not fully expected, intended, anticipated, or preplanned.”).3
The other passage cited by the majority is the trial court’s indication that specific intent to Mil is an essential element of the offense of first-degree murder. See Majority Opinion, op. at 550-51. This charge, however, is phrased in terms of direct criminal liability and does not eliminate the possibility of jurors relying on the vicarious liability instructions to otherwise find Appellant guilty of first-degree murder. This is precisely why the Huffman Court recognized a special rule for first-degree murder cases in which vicarious liability is charged. Accord Commonwealth v. Chester, 557 Pa. 358, 380 n. 12, 733 A.2d 1242, 1253 n. 12 (1999) (“A general accomplice charge, while legally correct on the law of accomplice liability, when given in conjunction with a charge of first degree murder, must clarify for the jury that the specific intent to Mil necessary for a conviction of first degree murder must be found present in both the actual Mller and the accomplice.”). Moreover, the specific intent charge given in relation to the Commonwealth’s assertion of direct criminal liability was also issued in Huffman, as it is in all first-degree murder cases. Indeed, its absence alone would be a fatal defect, as there would be no basis for a finding of direct criminal liability.4
*151I acknowledge that the Court has declined to deem a Huffman defect prejudicial where a defendant is also convicted of a conspiracy to kill, as such objective presupposes the requisite specific intent. See Commonwealth v. Wayne, 553 Pa. 614, 633, 720 A.2d 456, 465 (1998). Here, however, the conspiracy charged involved multiple objectives (rape and/or murder, see N.T., May 18, 1987, at 2096), and the jury did not differentiate between those objectives in rendering its verdict. Accordingly, the jurors may have believed (consistent with the most damaging of Appellant’s statements) that Appellant’s own intent was limited to the objective of rape, but may nevertheless have convicted him of first-degree murder based on the court’s vicarious criminal liability instructions. Accord Huffman, 536 Pa. at 199, 638 A.2d at 963. In such circumstance, under the law as the jury should have been instructed, although Appellant would have been guilty of second-degree murder, he would not have been death eligible.
In the circumstances, it is my position that Appellant was due, at a minimum, a hearing in the post-conviction court, in line with the approach recently applied in Commonwealth v. Duffey, 579 Pa. 186, 203-05, 855 A.2d 764, 775-76 (2004) (citing Commonwealth v. McGill, 574 Pa. 574, 588, 832 A.2d 1014, 1022 (2003)), although it would seem that a strong inference of deficient stewardship on the part of counsel should attach to the failure to object to (and to preserve a claim of error in relation to) an instruction that has been characterized by this Court as patently erroneous and as causing a miscarriage of justice.
As a final point, I note my agreement with Mr. Justice Baer’s position that the trial court’s penalty-phase instructions are not harmonious with the United States Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988).

. As summarized by one set of commentators:
[D]rugs are not "truth sera.” They lessen inhibitions to verbalization and stimulate unrepressed expression not only of fact but of fancy and suggestion as well. Thus, the material produced is not “truth” in the sense that it conforms to empirical fact. Finally, it is most important to realize that the conduct of the interrogation and the analysis of its verbal and behavioral content are exceedingly complex. *147Thus the bare results of an interview under the influence of drugs should not, standing alone, be considered a valuable and reliable indicator of the facts. As a sole procedure, narcoanalysis is not sufficiently reliable.
Dession, Freedman, Donnelly & Redlich, Drug-Induced. Revelation and Criminal Investigation, 62 Yale L.J. 315, 319-29, 342 (1953).

. The case for admissibility of evidence obtained via narcoanalysis may be strongest in the context of a medical opinion concerning a defendant's competency, accord John W. Strong, McCormick on Evidence § 206 (5th ed.2003). Although Appellant had placed his competency at issue by challenging his confession on the basis of his asserted mental deficiencies, the district attorney was clearly pursuing a simple truth— determining angle, as his questions were directed toward suggesting that Appellant’s assertion of a diminished mental condition was contrived. Moreover, and again, I believe that the matter of narcoanalysis is far too complex to be invoked casually by the government as a device on cross-examination, particularly of a school psychologist.

. I realize that the Court has recently approved similar general vicarious liability instructions in a first-degree murder case, absent the mandated specialized instruction, thus implicitly overruling Huffman. See Commonwealth v. Speight, 578 Pa. 520, 535-38, 854 A.2d 450, 459-60 (2004). It is my position, however, that it is appropriate to adhere to established precedent unless and until the Court expressly undertakes to overrule it. This simply was not done in Speight.

. Concerning the ineffectiveness dynamic, although this case was tried before Huffman's issuance, and counsel cannot be deemed ineffective *151for failing to anticipate a new rule of law, Huffman did not implement such a rule, but merely applied existing precedent established at least as of 1982. See Huffman, 536 Pa. at 199, 638 A.2d at 962 (citing Commonwealth v. Bachert, 499 Pa. 398, 406, 453 A.2d 931, 935 (1982)).